President Donald Trump is poised to nominate Dr. Casey Means, a physician-turned-wellness influencer with deep affiliations with Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., for surgeon general, subsequent to rescinding his initial selection for the prominent health position.

In a post on social media on Wednesday, Trump declared that Means possesses "impeccable 'MAHA' credentials"—a nod to the "Make America Healthy Again" slogan—and asserted that her mandate would be to extirpate chronic ailments and elevate the health and welfare of the American populace.

“Her academic achievements, in conjunction with her life's opus, are demonstrably preeminent,” Trump averred. “Dr. Casey Means possesses the potential to ascend to the pantheon of the most distinguished Surgeon Generals in the annals of United States History.”

This action precipitated the withdrawal of Janette Nesheiwat, formerly a medical commentator for Fox News, from contention for the position, thus representing at minimum the second instance of a health-related appointee nominated by Trump being rescinded from Senate deliberation. Nesheiwat's confirmation hearing before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee had been slated for Thursday.

Means and her sibling, Calley Means, a former lobbyist, functioned as pivotal counsellors in Kennedy's audacious 2024 presidential campaign, instrumental in orchestrating his endorsement of Trump during the preceding summer. This duo made public appearances alongside some of Trump's most fervent adherents, garnering acclaim from conservative commentator Tucker Carlson and podcast impresario Joe Rogan. Calley Means presently holds a position as a White House adviser, frequently appearing on television to advocate for limitations on SNAP benefits, the eradication of fluoride from potable water, and other policy initiatives aligned with the MAHA agenda.

Devoid of prior governmental exposure and having abandoned her surgical residency owing to a reported disenchantment with conventional medical practices, Casey Means established Levels, a health technology enterprise facilitating user monitoring of glycaemic indices and other biomarkers. Furthermore, she garners revenue streams from endorsements of dietary supplements, topical preparations, infusions, and miscellaneous commodities showcased across her digital platforms.

In diverse interviews and scholarly articles, Means and her brother delineate an intricate tapestry of influences deemed culpable for the nation's pervasive health issues, chief among which are avaricious food conglomerates that have ensnared Americans in deleterious dietary practices, thereby rendering them reliant on quotidian pharmacotherapy dispensed by the pharmaceutical sector for the management of corpulence, diabetes mellitus, and other enduring pathologies.

Few health savants would contest that the American diet — replete with ultra-processed victuals — is a salient etiological factor in adiposity and correlative maladies; nonetheless, Means posits a more expansive nexus, affiliating dietary and lifestyle vicissitudes with a panoply of pathologies, inter alia, sterility, Alzheimer’s disease, melancholia, and penile dysfunction.

In a 2024 book co-authored with her sibling, Means posited that a substantial proportion of chronic health symptomatology within the purview of conventional Western medical paradigms is, in essence, a sequela of cellular compromise engendered by contemporary lifestyles.

Means has largely distanced herself from Kennedy's contentious and discredited perspectives on vaccines. Nonetheless, her website features a call for further inquiry into their safety and advocates for facilitating patient litigation against pharmaceutical companies in cases of vaccine-related harm. Federal legislation, enacted in the late 1980s, has historically insulated these corporations from legal accountability, thereby fostering vaccine development unhindered by the potential financial burden of personal injury claims.

A medical luminary from Stanford University, she has cultivated a substantial online constituency through her trenchant critiques of the prevailing medical paradigm and her advocacy for naturalistic sustenance and volitional lifestyle modifications as therapeutic modalities for ameliorating, if not outright reversing, metabolic dysregulation syndromes encompassing corpulence and diabetes mellitus, alongside a spectrum of other enduring morbidities.

Should his appointment as surgeon general be ratified, Means would assume responsibility for championing Kennedy's expansive MAHA programme, which advocates for the eradication of myriad additives and chemical compounds from the American food supply, the extirpation of conflicts of interest within federal bodies, and the incentivisation of more salutary dietary options within scholastic and other nutritional initiatives.

Nesheiwat, Trump's initial choice, serves as a medical director for an urgent care enterprise in New York and has frequently appeared on Fox News to proffer medical acumen and perspectives, whilst being an ardent advocate for Trump and publicizing images of their joint appearances on social media, and is furthermore the sister-in-law of erstwhile national security adviser Mike Waltz, who has been designated as Trump's nominee for Ambassador to the United Nations.

Yet, she had lately been subjected to censure from Laura Loomer, a partisan of the extreme right aligned with Trump, who proved instrumental in the removal of several individuals from the president's National Security Council. Earlier this week, Loomer disseminated on X the assertion that the post of surgeon general could not be occupied by "a nepo appointee advocating pro-COVID vaccination, who is currently enmeshed in litigation pertaining to medical malpractice and who did not receive their medical education in the United States."

Last month, the independent freelance journalist Anthony Clark reported that, contrary to her assertions of holding a degree from the University of Arkansas School of Medicine, Nesheiwat had obtained her medical qualifications from the American University of the Caribbean School of Medicine in St. Maarten, a discrepancy that, according to an individual privy to the administration's deliberations who requested anonymity, led the White House to withdraw Nesheiwat's nomination amid concerns regarding the viability of her confirmation.

Nesheiwat, in a social media missive disseminated on Wednesday, affirmed her unwavering commitment to the ongoing support of President Trump and collaboration with Secretary Kennedy in a pivotal policy capacity aimed at the salubrious restoration of the American populace, reiterating that her principal objective remains the amelioration of the health and welfare of all citizens.

The Surgeon General, regarded as the preeminent public health authority in the United States, supervises a cadre of 6,000 commissioned officers within the U.S. Public Health Service Corps and possesses the prerogative to disseminate advisories apprising the populace of imminent or extant public health exigencies.

In March, the White House rescinded the nomination of former Florida Republican Representative Dave Weldon for Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; his discernible skepticism regarding vaccinations had engendered apprehension among influential Republican senators, leading to his withdrawal after being apprised by the White House that his confirmation lacked sufficient congressional backing.