Online influencer faces confirmation hearing for US Senate surgeon general

‘Welfare influencer’ Casey Means to go to confirmation hearing

By Dan Vergano edited by Tanya Lewis

Wellness influencer Casey Means, who left a medical residency to pursue alternative medicine, will appear today at a U.S. Senate confirmation hearing on her nomination for U.S. Surgeon General. Her original hearing, scheduled for October 30, 2025, was delayed by the delivery of her first child.

Last May, President Donald Trump nominated Means for the job of “the nation’s doctor,” a role best known to high-profile health advisers. The surgeon also heads a uniformed public health corps whose members serve in agencies such as the US Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Means, 38, was nominated after the Trump administration withdrew its initial nomination of Fox News contributor Janette Nesheiwat for the job following reports that she had made misleading claims about her medical training and military service.

“(Means’) academic achievements, along with her life’s work, are absolutely outstanding,” Trump said in a social media post announcing her nomination.

On supporting science journalism

If you like this article, please consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribes. By purchasing a subscription, you help secure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas that shape our world today.

Means is a popular wellness influencer allied with Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. She has argued that many diseases, such as diabetes, cancer and Alzheimer’s, stem from poor diet, sleeplessness and lack of exercise – all of which, she has said, ultimately affect cellular function under a “mitochondrial dysfunction” theory of disease.

She is expected to face questions about financial conflicts of interest over ties to companies that sell nutritional supplements and her role in the “functional medicine” company she co-founded, Levels, which markets glucose monitors to healthy people. (The American Academy of Family Physicians temporarily halted awarding of continuing education credits in functional medicine in 2014 after finding that some of its treatments were “harmful and dangerous.” Courses that teach clinicians how to perform specific techniques remain blocked.) Means said in a government filing last September that she will step down from her advisory-level position if she is confirmed as a surgeon.

The Senate is also expected to ask Means about her views on vaccines. Republican senator and physician Bill Cassidy of Louisiana has increasingly voiced concerns about moves by HHS to undermine childhood vaccine recommendations. Means, meanwhile, has echoed Kennedy’s vaccine skepticism in recent statements.

Means trained as a physician at Stanford University School of Medicine, and retired from his medical residency training as an ear, nose and throat surgeon in 2018 to co-found Levels. Means’ brother Calley Means, with whom she co-authored the best-selling nutrition advice book Good energy: The surprising connection between metabolism and limitless healthrecently resigned as a White House adviser to Kennedy. His tenure was marked by conflicts of interest. Casey Means has criticized the food and pharmaceutical industries for downplaying the role of healthy diet in preventing disease, a standard argument of the Trump administration’s “Make America Healthy Again” movement.

Bloomberg reported last October that in Casey Means’ testimony at the hearing, she plans to say, “My professional history has prepared me to be an innovative, unifying and hands-on leader focused on reversing chronic disease.”

Former Trump administration Surgeon General Jerome Adams and American Public Health Association CEO Georges Benjamin have criticized Means because she does not have an active medical license or board certification, and they have argued that she is overselling wellness as a cure for disease. Her endorsement of unpasteurized raw milk despite its proven health harms and her focus on mitochondrial diseases echo similar rhetoric from Kennedy.

“Casey Means is more influencer than doctor,” says Michigan State University’s Mariah Wellman, who studies influencer credibility in the wellness industry. Means is a “prime example” of an online entrepreneur using a medical degree to establish credibility while speaking outside the confines of practice, she adds.

“I’m concerned that Means will not work to make Americans healthy and instead advance her own goals of becoming more popular online and making more money — the very things she often says she’s fighting,” Wellman says.

The confirmation hearing begins at 10 a.m. EST.

It’s time to stand up for science

If you liked this article, I would like to ask for your support. Scientific American has served as an advocate for science and industry for 180 years, and right now may be the most critical moment in its two-century history.

I have been one Scientific American subscriber since I was 12 years old, and it helped shape the way I see the world. SciAm always educates and delights me, and inspires a sense of awe for our vast, beautiful universe. I hope it does for you too.

If you subscribe to Scientific Americanyou help ensure our coverage is centered on meaningful research and discovery; that we have the resources to report on the decisions that threaten laboratories across the United States; and that we support both budding and working scientists at a time when the value of science itself is too often not recognised.

In return, you receive important news, captivating podcasts, brilliant infographics, can’t-miss newsletters, must-see videos, challenging games, and the world of science’s best writing and reporting. You can even give someone a subscription.

There has never been a more important time for us to stand up and show why science is important. I hope you will support us in that mission.