The Trump administration threw its support behind Casey Means for surgeon general a day after President Donald Trump injected uncertainty into her nomination, which has been stalled in the Senate.
The president Sunday night on Air Force One said he didn’t know how she was doing in the confirmation process, noting that he was more focused on Iran. But he added, “We have a lot of great candidates for” surgeon general.
In a statement Monday evening from White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, the administration praised Means’s Stanford credentials and ties to the Make America Healthy Again movement.
“Dr. Casey Means has spent her entire career as an entrepreneur, bestselling author, and researcher bringing attention to America’s chronic disease epidemic and how our healthcare system is failing the American people,” the statement said. “The President stands by her and the Senate should move to quickly [confirm] Dr. Means as our next surgeon general without further delay.”
Several Republican senators have questioned Means’s responses in her February confirmation hearing about vaccines, her medical credentials and her pushes against the medical establishment.
Her nomination tests the political power of the MAHA movement that Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has championed. Means wrote the book widely considered the bible of the MAHA movement, “Good Energy,” with her brother, Calley Means, a top White House adviser on health issues, and the political arm of the movement had been trying to rally supporters for her confirmation.
Several Kennedy allies have been caught in the political crossfire in recent months. Kennedy has downplayed his push to overhaul the nation’s vaccine infrastructure and instead has leaned on messaging around food and drug prices, following a memo from Trump’s chief pollster late last year calling eliminating long-standing recommendations for certain vaccines “politically risky.”
Means rose to prominence on a message of criticizing unhealthy food, addressing chronic diseases and frequently suggesting that Americans should question the advice they get from medical authorities. She did not explicitly recommend certain vaccines broadly during a late-February confirmation hearing, and the status of her medical license, which she had voluntarily placed in inactive status in Oregon, has raised concerns among some lawmakers.
“Anti-vaccine rhetoric has never been a part of my message,” Means said during her confirmation hearing, noting that patients should speak with their physicians and that vaccines save lives. She added: “This is not a part of my core message. I am not here to complicate the issue on vaccines.”
The post White House reaffirms support for surgeon general pick after Trump remarks appeared first on Washington Post.
