Marc Short served as director of legislative affairs for President Donald Trump. He is the chairman of Advancing American Freedom.
When the Founding Fathers drafted the Constitution, they didn’t see fit to create an office of surgeon general. It probably never occurred to them that the nation needed a government-appointed chief medical expert swaggering around in a naval uniform. They would surely have questioned the wisdom of giving a single, politically connected individual a state-sanctioned platform to make pronouncements about medicine.
With a presidential appointment and Senate approval, a surgeon general could be anyone. America’s “top doc” appears not to need any track record of success in the medical field. As President Donald Trump’s nominee Casey Means demonstrates, the next surgeon general could even be a former supplement saleswoman who talks about experimenting with illicit drugs.
Conservatives should push to eliminate the surgeon general position altogether, not spend political capital and Senate floor time confirming someone whose record and public opinion polling are so bad they prove that the government should never be trusted on matters of health.
The Means nomination exposes how unserious the role really is. In her book “Good Energy,” Means recounts hearing an “internal voice that whispered” to her that it was time to try psilocybin — commonly known as magic mushrooms — which she began using in 2021. She described the experience as offering “a doorway to a different reality.”
Even in an age of therapeutic experimentation, this should give senators pause. After all, many Americans still look to the surgeon general for serious, evidence-based guidance on everything from opioid abuse to mental health.
But that “voice” that told Means to try magic mushrooms might not be the only one speaking to her about matters of health.
Means has embraced a constellation of spiritual and quasi-mystical practices that sit far outside the mainstream of Western medicine. She has written about talking to trees, working with a “spiritual medium” and participating in “full moon ceremonies.” She has praised “Indigenous wisdom” in language that sounds less like a physician and more like a New Age mystic.
In one particularly revealing passage from “Good Energy,” she wrote: “I felt myself as part of an infinite and unbroken series of cosmic nesting dolls of millions of mothers and babies before me from the beginning of life.”
Americans are free to pursue whatever spiritual path they choose. But the surgeon general is not a shaman. Means would be tasked with translating rigorous scientific consensus into clear public guidance, not exploring the healing power of crystals and drum circles.
There is also the lack of professional qualifications.
Though she graduated from medical school, Means never completed her residency. She does not hold an active medical license and is currently not eligible to treat patients. Instead, she has built a career as a wellness “influencer,” profiting from newsletters and social media.
Means’s platforms have featured sponsorships from supplement companies and other commercial partnerships that raise obvious conflict-of-interest questions. Americans have grown weary of a health culture that blurs the line between public service and product placement. Elevating a figure associated with supplement marketing to the nation’s top medical advisory role risks deepening that cynicism.
Surgeons general — who lead the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps, which uses naval ranks and uniforms — are hardly delivering groundbreaking medical news to the American people.
Vivek H. Murthy, surgeon general for the Biden administration, issued an advisory declaring that parents are stressed. While those of us who have kids might appreciate the solidarity from up top, this is hardly a shocking discovery requiring confirmation by America’s august Senate.
Murthy also called for an updated warning label on alcoholic beverages to inform Americans of the potential link between consuming alcohol and cancer. Most Americans aren’t drinking for the health benefits. They know that alcohol isn’t coconut water.
America faces a serious chronic disease crisis, and our health care system too often prioritizes treatment over prevention. But confronting that crisis means patients should seek medical advice from qualified physicians.
Currently, Means’s nomination appears to hang in the balance. The Senate’s health committee has not yet scheduled a vote on her nomination. Though the Senate will always have its seal clappers, some committee members seem to be aware that Means is not exactly an all-star candidate. Among the uncommitted Republican holdouts are Sens. Lisa Murkowski (Alaska), Susan Collins (Maine) and committee Chairman Bill Cassidy (Louisiana).
For the sake of public health, senators should vote no on Means, and then do taxpayers a favor by eliminating the position altogether.
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