Who is Casey Means, MD?
Extreme elements in the MAHA base have a freakout moment
I have been saddened today by all the attacks on Casey Means, MD. Part of that I suppose, is that the very same people who should be glad to support her nomination for Surgeon General, instead have focused on attacking her. Some of those attacks are clearly aimed at taking down MAHA, MAGA, Sec. Kennedy, and President Donald Trump.
So, who is Casey Means?
Dr. Means did not just burst into the public sphere, like some sort of meteor with the publication of her book “Good Energy” in 2024.
Casey Means, MD, has long been a spokesperson in the metabolic health community, which is one element of the MAHA movement.
She has long been on the Editorial Advisory Board of the International Journal of Disease Reversal and Prevention, as noted at the end of her 2020 article in The Hill, titled: “Healthy food: The unexpected medicine for COVID-19 and national security.” In that 2020 article, she wrote:
From the perspectives of science and national security, the correct strategy is clear: All Americans need to eat healthier foods, lose weight, and get into good physical shape. All of this supports immunity. It is well established that obesity, diabetes, heart disease and high blood pressure are largely preventable with healthy diet and lifestyle. But healthy living is very difficult for Americans facing relentless advertising for processed and unhealthy foods, addictive (salt and sugar) ultra-processed food, entrenched and culturally-reinforced taste preferences, limited access to healthy foods for many Americans, public policy that subsidizes disease-promoting foods, sedentary behavior, and a health care and medical education system that still largely emphasizes sick care over prevention.
In the face of this mess, it can seem like the simplest course is to give up and rely on insulin, statins, blood pressure medicine and other palliative care to moderately extend lives. But the message from COVID-19 is that chronic medications don’t ensure resilience against pandemic viruses. Only good physical health appears to have helped. It is, without exaggeration, a Darwinian moment for America. Americans must build personal immunity defenses through radical changes in diet and exercise, or risk getting sick and dying.
Over five years ago, she was writing about ultra-processed foods in a National newspaper. At a time when most Americans had never even heard of the word. That shows a long commitment to this cause.
Casey Mean’s journey began when she was introduced to Dr. Mark Hyman’s work on preventing chronic disease through diet while finishing up her residency. During that time, her mother was in the process of dying from cancer due to metabolic dysfunction. (A note: Casey Means was already licensed as a general practitioner (GP) in medicine and has a stellar educational background - she has every right to call herself a physician). She became driven by what she discovered. Between her mother’s chronic and acute diseases and her research journey, she began questioning the over-reliance of Westernized medicine on the use of medications to treat chronic disease. She also took training and certification from the Institute for Functional Medicine (IFM) to become an expert in metabolic function, and she worked directly with Dr. Mark Hyman. Mark Hyman is a longstanding leader in this area and Secretary Kennedy's close friend and confidant. Dr. Means’ educational path became focused on metabolic health rather than her surgical residency, which all comes down to food. But this is not something that is taught in medical schools. The metabolic health community has a large community of practitioners. As such, she quickly became a leading voice, as early as 2020, long before her best-selling book came out in 2024.
Casey Means is pharma’s worst nightmare
The Make American Healthy Again movement comprises diverse set of groups, organizations, and individuals from various places and backgrounds. It includes members from the medical freedom movement, the regenerative agriculture community, the metabolic health community, health freedom movement, functional medicine practitioners, exercise enthusiasts, functional medicine, integrative medicine, chiropractors, and those advocating specific diets. These groups and people encompass all aspects of the political spectrum, from Libertarians, progressives, greens, Democrats, and Republicans.
What MAHA represents is a collective movement that wants big ag, big pharma and their surreptitious influence campaigns out of government. The MAHA movement truly believes that Americans are chronically ill and that there are many causes. Worse, our children are the victims of this industrialized, corrupted system. This crisis must be addressed on all fronts. However, there are solutions if we Americans have the willpower and are willing to work to bring these solutions to fruition.
Which brings me to why Mark Hyman is so important as an advocate for Casey Means. Dr. Hyman is an American physician and author known for his advocacy of functional medicine. Hyman is a senior advisor for the Cleveland Clinic Center for Functional Medicine. He is also the board president for clinical affairs of the Institute for Functional Medicine. Hyman is a fifteen-time New York Times best-selling author and host a very popular podcast. He writes the following about Casey Means:
I’m beyond thrilled to celebrate and congratulate my dear friend and close ally, Casey Means, MD, on her nomination for Surgeon General of the United States. This moment is not only historic—it’s deeply personal.
Casey is one of the most courageous, nurturing, and pure-hearted humans I’ve ever had the privilege of knowing. She has poured her brilliance, compassion, and relentless dedication into the fight for a healthier, freer future for all of us. Just 5 years ago, after reading my book on the broken food system, #FoodFix, Casey made the bold decision to walk away from a prestigious surgical career and devote herself fully to the root-cause mission—to unearth and heal the true drivers of chronic disease and help reclaim health freedom for our nation.
Her conviction wasn’t abstract; it was total.
And just 6 months ago, she showed up for me—literally—on Christmas Day in the hospital, when I was facing one of the darkest, most vulnerable moments of my life. She brought presence, love, and strength when I needed it most. That’s who Casey is: someone who shows up, who listens deeply, who leads with her heart as fiercely as with her mind.
Her nomination signals a new chapter—not just for public health, but for the soul of healthcare in America. Casey embodies the kind of leadership we need: science-forward, root-cause focused, people-centered, and uncompromisingly ethical. There is no better person to carry this responsibility. And I can’t wait to see what she does next.
Congratulations, Casey. You are the future we’ve been waiting for.
Now the naysayers in the health freedom movement and many influencers like to single out her family’s progressive stances as a reason to disqualify her. I happen to have progressive family members, but that doesn’t make me a progressive. I, shock and horror, even have liberal friends. Being a conservative doesn’t mean I have to hate or disown anyone with divergent beliefs from my own. I expect the same holds for Casey Means.
Next, they attack her for not speaking out against the jab. But if she had, she would have not been able to be as effective as an advocate against big pharma and big ag.
There is an element of gang-stalking or cyber-bullying in all of this that is highly offensive. Some of which is being done by people that I thought better of.
Here is a prediction.
Big pharma and big Ag are throwing money behind some of the conservative influencers, and appear to be using bots to throw dirt on Dr. Casey Means and drive divisiveness and extremism within the MAHA base. There is a pattern to these posts. Just as Nick Sortor revealed that the pro-soda for SNAP recipients/anti-Kennedy posts were orchestrated by "Influenceable", a public relations firm offering influencers up to $1,000 per post to oppose SNAP reform, I hypothesize that the same is happening as these same corporations try to kill Casey Means' nomination. There are WAY too many comments from what appear to be fake accounts, coming in on this topic on X in opposition to this Surgeon General appointment. It reeks of bot farm activity.
Swarms of paid bots are routinely used to drive influencers into more radicalized stances. It is a trap that many have fallen into.
An example: No matter what one thinks about the Israel/Gaza conflict, many young conservatives have believed that thousands of their followers are anti-semites. They have been pushed into writing and saying more and more outrageous things - frankly racist things. They have crafted their posts to be more and more anti-semite, to appeal to their followers, but the sad truth is that the vast majority are probably paid bots.
As a result, their voices have been completely marginalized. They are shadow-banned, and in the case of Candace Owens, have been banned from Youtube, not welcome on most conservative media outlets anymore, and have essentially removed themselves from the game. Who benefits? Probably foreign actors or a liberal group -trying to pull votes away from Trump. This is just one example.
The COVID-19 jab bots and trolls pushed many influencers into extreme positions. One that I like to cite is that many built their following on the notion that the jab was a bioweapon and that everyone who took it would be dead in two years. But everyone didn’t die in two years… Another was that the jab contained nanobots that would re-assemble into listening devices or some tracking device. There was no scientific basis for this, yet many put this out as fact. There are conspiracy theories out there that are patently false and always have been. Unfortunately, many influencers with credible degrees lost sight of the truth under the influence of intentional bot swarm tactics designed to drive them to accept and endorse fringe theories. This led to a public distrust of the very people who have worked to expose the dangers of the MRNA COVID vaccine, but did not endorse the more extreme positions. One cluster of concepts for this dynamic is purity tests or purity spirals.
I strongly believe that most of their followers who have pushed such people to extreme positions are ethereal - virtual - not real.
Is this the case with Dr. Casey Means? Time will tell.
Why did Trump pick her?
Casey Means is a bold, outstanding candidate who can communicate to the general public. She is charismatic and camera-ready. She will be an important communicator and spokesperson for the Trump Administration. That is the most important role of Surgeon General, and it is one she will excel at. The Surgeon General position is most effective as a bully pulpit.
Casey Means, MD wrote a book on nutrition and big ag/the toxic food supply, not mRNA vaccines.
She has provided direction for the MAHA movement - which is MAKE AMERICA HEALTHY AGAIN - it is about chronic disease and nutrition and so much more, not just about vaccines. There are many names for the anti-vax and anti-mRNA vaccine movement (medical freedom comes to mind), but these groups/concepts are only a small part of MAHA.
Anyone who spoke against either mRNA vaccines or vaccines will not get through Senate confirmation. End of story.
Trump will not likely nominate someone who cannot be confirmed. He needs the Senate to confirm his appointments.
But the truth is, she is the right candidate for the right time.
I endorse her nomination completely.
“She will provide our country with ethical guidance, wisdom, and gold-standard medical advice even when it challenges popular orthodoxies. She will be a juggernaut against the ossified medical conventions that have helped make our people the sickest in the world at the highest cost per capita. Casey is a breath of fresh air,”
-Sec. Kennedy
If you have half an hour, this video on regenerative farming is worth watching.
As many of you know, over two decades ago, Jill and I learned many of our self-sufficiency skills directly from the old-time farmers still alive in Maryland and Virginia, who are keeping our American farming traditions alive and our Amish friends.
The truth is that both Jill and I have been farming without chemicals for decades, but it has been a deeply personal journey - very different from my “career.” Since the outbreak, this had led us down a path of finding better ways to become healthy through diet. For us, that means we have settled on a mix of intermitant fasting, and a low carb-low grain organic paleo diet, rich is protein. We manage to grow about 25% of what we eat at home, rely of local farmers for our grass-fed beef, and local dairy for our milk and butter. We eat cheese that is organic or produced in countries like Italy, which don’t use chemicals.
We keep no sugar, commericial bread, and no ultra-processed food in the house. This is important - as if it isn’t in the cupboard, it isn’t available for eating.
At one point, about three years ago - Jill threw away the sugar, she went through the cupboards and fed all the ultra-processed foods to the chickens over a period of a week or two. We have not looked back.
Since then, we both have dropped fifty pounds and I believe, added years to our lives.
It is kind of amazing that now, in my mid-sixties, I have a chance to share some my knowledge about healthy eating, skills and passion for traditional farming with all of you.
