President Trump’s pick for Surgeon General, Casey Means, M.D., is shaking up the medical establishment with a bold diagnosis: our healthcare system is designed to keep us sick. What’s perhaps even more surprising, her nomination is also rattling conservatives in the MAHA camp.
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- Dr. Casey Means, Trump’s nominee for Surgeon General, is a vocal critic of the US healthcare system, advocating for root-cause medicine, metabolic health, and a shift away from pharmaceutical dependency and symptom-based care.
- Her nomination has stirred controversy across the political spectrum.
- ANH-USA sees her as a paradigm-shifting opportunity to reform public health policy and challenge entrenched interests in Big Pharma and processed food industries.
President Donald Trump’s nomination of Dr. Casey Means for US Surgeon General has sent shockwaves through Washington—and for good reason. A Stanford-trained physician, now non-practicing, turned integrative health advocate, Means is not just another technocratic pick for a ceremonial role. She is a reformer and a voice for integrative medicine and systemic healthcare change.
Though there has been some controversy in the MAHA movement over her nomination, our research suggests most of the concerns that have been raised are illusory or greatly overblown. A common criticism is “where was Casey Means during COVID?” It turns out she was heavily involved with the care of a gravely ill parent, who died of pancreatic cancer in 2021.
As a mission-driven organization, ANH-USA sees that under Means’ leadership there would be tremendous potential to move the needle in the right direction on public health. Her ideas challenge the bedrock of our current medical system, and for organizations like ANH-USA that fight for health freedom and integrative approaches to wellness, her nomination represents the ongoing commitment to try to reverse America’s largely preventable chronic disease epidemic.
A Journey from Scalpel to Systems Thinking
Dr. Means’ journey began like so many other doctors: high test scores, elite schooling, and years of training as a doctor then surgeon. But as she climbed the career ladder, she began to see the forest for the trees. Despite her skills and credentials, she found herself performing the same surgeries over and over again, treating symptoms but never addressing root causes.
Why are patients getting sick in the first place? Why do 54% of children in the US have a chronic health condition, are overweight, or at risk for developmental delays? Why are life expectancy and fertility in decline, while US health spending dwarfs that of other countries?
What she saw was a fragmented, algorithmic medical system—one that sends patients to a dozen specialists for a dozen different symptoms without ever looking at the whole person. Medical school had taught her how to prescribe and cut, but not how to heal.
This disillusionment led her to leave surgery and co-found metabolic health company Levels, a biotech company focused on continuous glucose monitoring and metabolic health. Alongside her brother, Calley Means, who serves as a top advisor to Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., she authored Good Energy, a book that challenges the modern medical model and offers patients actionable steps to reclaim their well-being.
The Root of Disease—and the System That Protects It
Good Energy likely serves as a map of the ideas held by Trump’s Surgeon General pick. The book makes a compelling argument: the root of most chronic diseases is metabolic dysfunction, a condition plaguing over 93% of Americans. And what drives this dysfunction? A toxic matrix of ultra-processed food, pharmaceutical over-dependence, insufficient physical activity, chronic stress, and a medical-industrial complex incentivized to manage disease—not cure it.
The processed food industry, she and her brother note, is an extension of Big Tobacco. When tobacco companies realized their cigarette profits were under threat in the 1980s and ’90s, they pivoted—acquiring food companies and transferring their expertise in chemical dependency to food engineering. The result? A national diet built around seed oils, sugar, and refined carbs, promoted under a government-sanctioned food pyramid that villainized natural fats and glorified processed alternatives. The long-term effects are evident: skyrocketing rates of obesity and diabetes, fatty liver in teens, and even early-onset cancers.
These same companies, along with pharmaceutical giants, heavily influence the very institutions that craft our national health guidelines and the training of our doctors. Medical schools receive millions from drug companies; organizations like the American Academy of Pediatrics are also on the take from Big Pharma. And what about the American Diabetes Association, accepting money from the likes of Coca-Cola? The list goes on and on.
The incentives of these powerful companies and their government allies are not to help Americans stay healthy: the model is to create sick kids who can be given drugs for chronic illnesses their entire lives.
At ANH-USA, we’ve long argued that our health care system is less about care and more about control—of options, access, and information. Dr. Means appears to share that very same vision. She champions prevention, nutrition, movement, and metabolic testing—approaches marginalized by conventional medicine but supported by robust scientific evidence and patient outcomes.
The Backlash
For someone so aligned with principles of self-responsibility and bodily autonomy, one might expect Means to be a natural darling of more conservative circles. But her nomination has sparked ire across the ideological spectrum.
On the Right, firebrand influencer Laura Loomer attacked Means on social media, calling her a “WOO WOO WOMAN” and slamming her for not holding an active medical license—ignoring the reality that many former surgeons move into administrative, tech, or public health roles.
Nicole Shanahan, former wife of Google co-founder Sergey Brin and RFK Jr.’s estranged 2024 running mate, added fuel to the fire. In a cryptic and accusatory post, she claimed she had been assured that neither of the Means siblings would serve at HHS, suggesting they were “bred and raised to be Manchurian assets.”
Additionally, Peter Gillooly, CEO of The Wellness Company, and Calley Means, Casey’s brother, have become involved in their own dispute that has escalated into formal ethics complaints against Calley Means for conflicts of interest and counter-threats to sue for spreading false information.
Again, as a purely mission-driven organization looking to use good science and good law to create lasting, meaningful change in the health of this country, the available information suggests that Casey Means shares much of our vision for what’s wrong with healthcare and what to do about it. We’re not sure the same could be said of Dr. Janette Nesheiwat, the President’s previous nominee for the position of US Surgeon General.
A Fork in the Road
Dr. Casey Means represents a rare and timely opportunity: a Surgeon General who, like RFK Jr., actually wants to inform the American public about the roots of America’s chronic disease crisis and ways of remedying it. Not with more prescriptions, more mandates, or more regulatory capture—but with the proper use of science, education, and common sense.
Her vision is bold: overhaul medical education to include nutrition, dismantle the financial incentives that reward poor health outcomes, and return agency to the patient. That vision terrifies some—yet will excite and inspire many.
If confirmed, Dr. Means, in our view, could usher in a new era of health policy grounded not in pharmaceutical dependency, but in metabolic vitality.
At ANH-USA, we will unreservedly welcome that sea change in America’s approach to health—and we believe it’s long overdue.
