AYESHA RASCOE, HOST:
President Trump has a new pick for U.S. Surgeon General. He's tapped wellness influencer Dr. Casey Means. That's in place of his original choice, former Fox News contributor doctor Janette Nesheiwat. NPR's Will Stone is here with the details. Hi, Will.
WILL STONE, BYLINE: Hey there.
RASCOE: Why did Trump drop his first pick for surgeon general?
STONE: So no official statement from Trump or the White House on that, but it seems there may have been a few issues at play here. So first, Nesheiwat had come under scrutiny recently for misrepresenting her medical credentials, including where she went to medical school. This was revealed by an independent reporter, Anthony Clark, and has been matched by other outlets, though NPR has not independently confirmed the reporting. At the same time, Nesheiwat was also facing some strong opposition from those on the right and in Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s Make America Healthy Again, or MAHA, movement. One reason was her support for COVID policies like masking and vaccines. So whatever the rationale, Trump took to social media this week and announced he tapped Dr. Casey Means instead, saying she has, quote, "impeccable MAHA credentials."
RASCOE: Well, tell us more about Casey Means. Who is she?
STONE: Yeah, she's a wellness influencer, author and entrepreneur. She has a company that sells glucose monitoring devices to consumers. Her background is in medicine. She went to Stanford medical school and went on to surgical residency, but she dropped out pretty far along in the program. Her book is kind of a self-help diet type of book. It really catapulted her into the online wellness space. She's been on big podcasts. She appeared at a highly publicized congressional round table on nutrition last year that featured Secretary Kennedy and other big names in the MAHA world. But her resume is definitely a problem for many in medicine and public health. She did have a practice in Oregon but, again, never completed her residency, and she doesn't have an active medical license right now. I called up Dr. Richard Carmona to get his take on this. Carmona was the surgeon general under George W. Bush.
RICHARD CARMONA: Every previous surgeon general, when you look, they've got the license. They've got the residency. They have had at least some leadership ability that's scalable. And we don't see any of that here. I think that our nation deserves better.
RASCOE: How are her supporters responding to this?
STONE: Well, Secretary Kennedy is doubling down on his support. He's claiming Dr. Means will be the greatest surgeon general in American history. It's also worth noting her brother, Calley Means, is a prominent advisor to Kennedy. A lot of her messaging aligns with the secretary. She rails against the health care industry, big food, and big pharma, talks a lot about nutrition and lifestyle. Here's what Kennedy said on Fox News just the other day.
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ROBERT F KENNEDY JR: Casey Means, we felt, was the best person to really bring the vision of MAHA to the American public. She has this unique capacity to articulate it.
STONE: Now, Casey Means has made statements casting doubt on the safety of certain vaccines and the vaccine schedule. She's also endorsed things like raw milk, similar to Kennedy. All of this is concerning to experts in public health. But some in the Kennedy coalition are not happy with the pick. For example, Kennedy's former running mate, Nicole Shanahan has criticized the choice heavily, as have others, and some of the pushback has to do with her vaccine stance, that she has not come out strongly enough against vaccines, especially the COVID shots. So this choice is revealing, I'd say, some fractures in the MAHA coalition, and that plus concerns about her lack of experience could derail her nomination. We'll see.
RASCOE: That's NPR's Will Stone. Thank you so much for talking with us.
STONE: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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