Casey Means confirmation hearing shows a subdued nominee
At a Senate health committee confirmation hearing, casey means largely avoided the more unconventional wellness claims that have defined her public profile, and emphasized shared ground with senators questioning her. The hearing focused on her past statements, her business ties, and whether her background qualifies her for the surgeon general role.
Subdued testimony before the Senate’s health committee
Casey Means testified today in front of the Senate’s health committee and notably refrained from discussing her experiences with psychedelics or endorsing raw milk. The longtime health entrepreneur and influencer did not rail at length against birth control and instead emphasized her medical degree from Stanford, even while acknowledging that she does not have an active medical license. She sought common ground with senators cross-examining her as she answered questions about her record.
Earlier unconventional claims highlighted: trees, disasters and podcasts
Before her nomination last spring, Means—who dropped out of her surgical residency in 2018—embraced unconventional theories about wellness. Rina Raphael wrote last month that Means has talked to trees, implied that natural disasters are a “communication from God, ” and labeled the nation’s health “a spiritual crisis. ” When she appeared on Tucker Carlson’s podcast in 2024, she denounced seed oils and suggested that the widespread use of hormonal birth control reflected a cultural “disrespect of life. ” She has also questioned the universal birth dose of the hepatitis-B vaccine.
Good Energy, Levels Health and the MAHA connection
In her 2024 book, Good Energy—co-written with her brother, Calley—Means advised readers to avoid tap water and conventionally grown food and urged people to trust themselves rather than their doctors. The book recommends getting “one cumulative hour of very hot heat exposure” each week and says people should optimize their health using a glucose-monitoring device that is available through Levels Health, a company she co-founded. Calley is now a senior adviser to Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and is identified in the context as a key figure in the MAHA movement.
Ethics filing, corporate ties and committee scrutiny
Means wrote in her September ethics filing that she would resign from Levels and would forfeit or divest all stock options in the company. Despite that filing, she is still listed on Levels’ blog as the company’s chief medical officer. Means did not respond to a request for comment. During the hearing she said she has spent “the last several months working with the Office of Government Ethics to be fully compliant” with rules about conflicts of interest.
Financial relationships, disclosures and critics of her qualifications
Senator Chris Murphy pressed Means on financial relationships with companies whose products she has promoted in her newsletter, citing an analysis that found she frequently failed to make proper disclosures to her readers. Means testified, “I have a strong feeling that the way in which they gathered this data is done intentionally to create these claims that you’re making. ”
Means had reason to tone down her rhetoric: health leaders, including former surgeons general, have questioned her qualifications for the position. When Senator Patty Murray asked Means to explain earlier anti–birth-control comments, Means said she had been referring not to birth control generally but to particular women whose medical history might increase risk from taking birth control. She also avoided explicitly besmirching immunizations and told Senator Bill Cassidy, “I believe that vaccines are a key part of any infectious-disease public-health strategy. ”
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