Casey Means, President Trump’s nominee for surgeon general, faced intense questioning before the Senate Health Committee over her views on vaccines, pesticides, business ties, and her alignment with Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Make America Healthy Again agenda.
She is largely against pesticides and chemicals in food, so I imagine the left will suddenly be all in on both. They will claim it is Republican misinformation to suggest that chemicals in food can be harmful.
Means, a Stanford-trained physician and health entrepreneur, found bipartisan support for her focus on chronic disease and reducing Americans’ reliance on ultra-processed foods.
Mainstream media claimed that she sidestepped vaccine questions because she said, “vaccines save lives” and are an “important part of the public health strategy,” but stopped short of encouraging mothers to have their children vaccinated against measles and flu. It is dishonest to say she sidestepped the question. She answered that vaccines save lives while arguing for informed consent and questioning whether every vaccine in the current schedule is necessary.
She did not explicitly state that vaccines do not cause autism and questioned whether certain vaccines, such as the hepatitis B shot, should be universally administered at birth. She has been particularly critical of giving the hepatitis B vaccine to all newborns on their first day of life, questioning its necessity in every case.
She advocates “shared clinical decision-making” between families and their doctors rather than automatic adherence to a blanket schedule. While acknowledging the “overwhelming body of evidence” refuting a link between vaccines and autism, she also told senators that “science is never settled” and supported further investigation into environmental factors. Several senators pressed her on whether flu and hepatitis B vaccines reduce hospitalizations and deaths, and she acknowledged population-level benefits.
Refusing to encourage mothers to give their children a flu shot, saying more research is needed to determine whether vaccines are linked to autism, supporting informed consent, and suggesting that certain vaccines should possibly be removed from the standard childhood schedule is not sidestepping. It expresses a different viewpoint, which the left hates.
Dr. Means is a vocal critic of the prevalence of chemicals in the environment, which she links to rising rates of chronic disease. Her primary focus is on what she calls a broken food system and the dangers of ultra-processed foods and chemical additives.
She blames the chronic disease epidemic largely on the marketing and widespread consumption of ultra-processed foods, which she argues are structured against human health. She supports the Make America Healthy Again agenda to scrutinize and potentially remove food dyes and additives that are banned in other countries but still allowed in the United States.
Her philosophy centers on metabolic health, arguing that the medical establishment focuses too much on pushing pills rather than addressing how the American diet contributes to cellular dysfunction.
Lawmakers scrutinized her past criticism of pesticides. She has labeled many common pesticides toxic and suggested that reducing exposure could significantly improve health. During her hearing, she acknowledged that American farmers are in an impossible situation because the current food system depends on these chemicals to maintain affordability and scale.
She advocates a long-term transition to more sustainable farming practices that reduce reliance on toxic chemicals, recognizing that such changes would need to be gradual to avoid destabilizing agriculture.
Democrats questioned her financial ties to wellness companies, noting she earned significant income from partnerships with supplement and diagnostic testing brands. Some senators suggested she may have failed to properly disclose sponsored content. Means denied intentional wrongdoing and said she would correct any inadvertent disclosure issues.
Her medical background also drew attention. Though trained as a physician, she left her residency more than seven years ago and placed her Oregon medical license on inactive status, meaning she currently cannot practice medicine there.
Throughout the hearing, Means framed her mission as leading a national effort to combat chronic disease and promote healthier living. The exchange highlighted tensions over vaccines, federal health policy, and Kennedy’s reshaping of public health leadership under President Trump’s second term. As a close ally of Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and a leader in the Make America Healthy Again movement, Dr. Means emphasizes root-cause medicine over pharmaceutical interventions.
It is ironic that the left and their media allies are framing Dr. Means’s alignment with Secretary of Health Kennedy as a disadvantage rather than recognizing that having two leaders aligned and working toward similar goals will be more effective in bringing about positive change for the United States.
