Online influencer faces confirmation hearing for surgeon general in U.S. Senate

‘Wellness influencer’ Casey Means heads to confirmation hearing

By Dan Vergano edited by Tanya Lewis

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

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

“[Means’s] his academic achievements, as well as his life’s work, are absolutely remarkable,” Trump said in a social media post announcing his nomination.

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

She is expected to face questions about financial conflicts of interest related to her ties to companies that sell nutritional supplements and her role in the “functional medicine” company she co-founded, Levels, which markets glucometers to healthy people. (The American Academy of Family Physicians temporarily stopped granting continuing medical education credits in functional medicine in 2014 after deeming some of its treatments “harmful and dangerous.” Courses that teach clinicians how to perform specific techniques are still prohibited.) Means said in a government filing last September that she would resign from her advisory position at Levels if confirmed as general surgeon.

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

Trained as a physician at Stanford University School of Medicine, Means resigned from her medical residency as an ear, nose and throat surgeon in 2018 to co-found Levels. Means’ brother, Calley Means, with whom she co-wrote the bestselling nutritional advice book Good energy: the surprising link between metabolism and unlimited healthrecently resigned as Kennedy’s White House adviser. His tenure was marked by concerns over conflicts of interest. Casey Means criticized the food and drug industries for underestimating the role of healthy eating in preventing disease, a classic argument of the Trump administration’s “Make America Healthy Again” movement.

Bloomberg reported last October that in her testimony at the hearing, Casey Means planned to say: “My professional history has prepared me to be an innovative, unifying and practical leader focused on eliminating chronic disease.”

Former Trump administration Surgeon General Jerome Adams and American Public Health Association Executive Director Georges Benjamin criticized Means because she does not have an active medical license or board certification, and they argued that she was overselling wellness as a cure for disease. His support for unpasteurized raw milk despite its proven harmful health effects and his focus on mitochondrial disease echo similar rhetoric from Kennedy.

“Casey Means has more influence than a doctor,” says Mariah Wellman of Michigan State University, who studies the credibility of influencers in the wellness industry. Means is a “great example” of an online entrepreneur using a medical degree to establish credibility while expressing himself outside the confines of his training, she adds.

“I worry that Means is not helping to make Americans healthy and is instead pursuing her own goals of becoming more popular online and making more money — exactly what she says she often struggles with,” Wellman said.

The confirmation hearing will begin at 10:00 a.m. EST.

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