The Casey Means Surgeon General Nomination Appears To Be In Trouble
from the ruh-roh dept
It’s somewhat stunning to realize that the United States has been operating with Surgeon Generals that are merely “acting” in the role or “performing the duties of” since January 20th of 2025. The last Senate-confirmed SG was Dr. Vivek Murthy. The current nominee from the Trump/Kennedy team is Dr. Casey Means. This nomination has been languishing since May of last year. There has been plenty of pushback on her, due largely to her current profession as “wellness influencer” and the fact that she didn’t complete her residency and doesn’t have a license to practice in any of our 50 states.
She recently went before the Senate for her confirmation hearing and it, um, didn’t go all that well. As a result, it appears her nomination is very much in trouble. There are several GOP senators who are publicly expressing doubts about her, perhaps none more important then Bill Cassidy.
Senators Bill Cassidy (R-La.), Susan Collins (R-Maine), Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), and Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) all expressed concern in a confirmation hearing last month about her potential role and appear to remain doubtful. Just one of those senators may be enough to block her nomination from advancing beyond the Senate Health Committee.
Afterward, Senators Collins and Murkowski both said they still had questions. Murkowski also said she had “strong reservations” about Means’ nomination and that, as of last week, that opinion hadn’t changed, according to the Post.
So why did the confirmation hearing go so poorly? For some reasons you’d expect, and some you probably didn’t. Means mostly ducked questions about vaccines, giving interested senators no idea where she actually lands on the issue. There were also perfectly reasonable questions about her qualifications, given that she is not currently a practicing doctor of any kind. In her influencer career, she has mirrored much of what RFK Jr. has claimed about diet and exercise being the cure to most health issues, all while hocking your stereotypical supplements and magic potions.
But then there are the drugs and the lunar-worship.
A book that she co-authored with her brother, titled Good Energy, considered by some to be the “MAHA bible,” contains a chapter titled, “Trust Yourself, Not Your Doctor.” She has also drawn criticism for writing about taking magic mushrooms, consulting a “spiritual medium,” and participating in “full moon ceremonies.”
I won’t say I’m against the use of psychedelics generally, but I typically don’t love hearing about how great they are from my doctor.
As we’ve talked about before, it has become very clear that Kennedy simply lied a whole bunch in his own confirmation hearings as to what he would do as Secretary at HHS, particularly when it comes to vaccines. The thing about lying to people like Bill Cassidy, though, is now Kennedy needs him to confirm his hand-picked ally for Surgeon General.
And unless Cassidy is far stupider than I think he is, you have to believe he isn’t going to let Lucy pull the football away at the last moment for a second time.
Filed Under: bill cassidy, casey means, lisa murkowski, rfk jr., surgeon general, susan collins, thom tillis
Comments on “The Casey Means Surgeon General Nomination Appears To Be In Trouble”
Witch doctor?
She isn’t licensed as a medical doctor in any state and she “tak[es] magic mushrooms, consult[s] a “spiritual medium,” and participat[es] in “full moon ceremonies.”
It really sounds like she’s a witch doctor or shaman rather than a science-based medical doctor.
So the surgeon general is a witch doctor? Only under the Trump Administration would it be possible to write that sentence and not have it be a joke or sarcasm.
Heard that one before. You’ll never guess how it panned out.
I appreciate the optimism, but you may be missing who is Lucy in this situation.
Re:
Exactly. “Susan Collins expressed concerns” is a total meme at this point.
Baseball
Perhaps you’re confusing Lucy with someone who pulled a baseball.
In Charlie’s case it was always a football.
I really don’t know what’s wrong with hearing about psychedelics from your doctor. As just one example, there are actual research studies going on out there, and I wouldn’t be upset, offended or ‘not like’ hearing about participation in such a research study from my doctor if my doctor thought it was relevant. And the studies about them are promising. I wouldn’t mind hearing about that either.
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The keywords here are doctor and actual research, which by all accounts isn’t the case.
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If your doctor is suggesting psychedelics as a general health-maintenance tool like “maybe you need more calcium or vitamin D”, or “psychedelics cure cancer and diabetes”, then i guess you deserve each other.
The problem with bending to Trump
People voted for Cassidy in the last primaries in order to get a real doctor into Congress. And one reason for that was to avoid stupid catastrophes like RJK. The people voting for some crazy clueless MAGA candidate possibly endorsed by Trump were in the minority.
Guess who is not going to vote next primary because they no longer see a point in it.
We are living in an age of choice. If you want to swing a vote, your largest potential is not by getting more of your interest group to vote for you but fewer of the other’s interest group to vote at all.
So making the other look bad to their interest group is the ticket. Smearing them is one way. Creating a climate where they are afraid to speak up against Trump is another: when they succumb to the temptation of bending their knee, they will get replaced by someone worse come next primary.
Not because more voters want an asshat, but because more voters not wanting an asshat stay at home.
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Lol, you think Surgeon General’s matter.
Maybe if you want to squash dissent based on poor medical advice, but nah, we’re not into that.
I think you misspelled “more corrupt” as “stupider”. These are (mostly) not stupid people, they are corrupt grifters and it continues to baffle me that people still pretend it’s anything except that.
And to clarify further, Cassidy and all other republicans are definitely way more corrupt than you think they are if you think they will do anything to stop what is happening.
Are there Democrats questioning this besides the listed Republicans? I mean the D party has shown to be composed mostly by spineless, gutless leeches who couldn’t care less but there are some with some spine. Hopefully?
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Yes, we wouldn’t be talking about centrist Republicans wavering if the if the vote could get to 50 without them.
Generally when the majority of the Republican Party supports something but the centrist Republicans don’t, that indicates that the Democrats don’t either. I would have thought that was so obvious it didn’t need explaining.
The left-to-right spectrum is reductive, of course, but it’s a reasonable rule of thumb that if Susan Collins is opposing something from the left, then people who are farther left than she is are probably opposed to it too.
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Dems have not been perfect, but they’ve voted against a lot of nominees (exception Fetterman being a dumbass). RFK jr was 52-48 along party lines (with McConnell also voting against), for instance.
They’ve voted for more nominees than I’ve liked, but they’ve held the line on the unqualified cranks. It’s the Marco Rubios and the like where they’ve failed.
So you’re fine with psilocybin unless it’s used for psilocybin therapy?
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A good doctor would be unlikely to call them “great”, because the research results are a lot more mixed. They also probably wouldn’t be hyping them up apropos of nothing.
So, a patient would normally only be hearing about them if they had a condition for which other treatments had been ineffective or are not available, and the doctor had seen a study supporting psilocybin as a treatment. And it’d be “promising” (maybe also “experimental”), not “great”.
Unless they’re talking to some hack doctor who “seriously, baby, can prescribe anything you want.”
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Ah, another equivocating rhetorical goofball. Good fucking job. Much nuance, many point.
He's already shown he IS that stupid
And unless Cassidy is far stupider than I think he is, you have to believe he isn’t going to let Lucy pull the football away at the last moment for a second time.
Cassidy voted to confirm Kennedy, so yes, I absolutely, 100% believe he’s stupid enough to fall for the ‘I’m a real doctor who believes in real science, all that other stuff will have no impact on my ability to act professional and in accordance with real medical science’ lie again.