Casey Means, President Trump’s nominee for surgeon general, will appear before the Senate Health Committee on Wednesday and is likely to face an investigation over his qualifications to become the nation’s top doctor.
Although Means has a medical degree from Stanford Medical School, he left his medical residency and has no active medical license. Instead, she has built a career as a wellness influencer by embracing “functional” medicine, an undefined form of alternative medicine. He co-founded a company called Levels, which promotes intensive health tracking, including the use of continuous glucose monitoring for people without diabetes or prediabetes, which is not supported by evidence.
Last year, an analysis by The Washington Post found that Means made more than half a million dollars between 2024 and 2025 by striking deals with companies selling “diagnostic tests,” “herbal remedies and wellness products,” and “teas, supplements and elixirs.”
But Means is best known as an ally of anti-vaccine Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and a popular influencer among Kennedy’s Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) followers.
In 2024, Means and his brother Kelly Means – a close Kennedy aide and Trump administration official – wrote a book that some consider to be MAHA’s Bible: Good Energy: The Surprising Connection Between Metabolism and Unlimited Health. The book provides dietary and lifestyle advice, including a recommendation to avoid processed foods, seed oils, fragrances, a variety of home care products, fluoride, unfiltered water, bananas (when eaten alone), receipt paper, and birth control pills. It includes a chapter titled “Trust Yourself, Not Your Doctor.”
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