Senate Must Reject Casey Means as Surgeon General, Defend Public Health Says

"Health Influencer” is Utterly Unqualified for Key Public Health Job
 

WASHINGTON, D.C. –  With her confirmation hearing scheduled for this morning, Defend Public Health is urging the Senate to reject the nomination of Casey Means as U.S. Surgeon General. Means is a “health influencer” without discernible qualifications to be Surgeon General and who seems to make most of her living peddling unproven products and tests sold by companies led by herself and her brother, Calley Means.

“She dropped out of her surgical residency, is not board certified in any specialty, holds an expired medical license, and has no public health background whatsoever outside of promoting scientifically unsupported disease remedies in her newsletter,” said Defend Public Health member and virologist Angela Rasmussen, Ph.D. “Her only apparent qualification for the job of Surgeon General is her willingness to promote RFK Jr.’s disinformation and quackery.”

“The U.S. Surgeon General is the leading U.S. government voice on public health issues,” added DPH member Oni Blackstock, M.D., a primary care and HIV physician and former Assistant Commissioner at the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. “That person must be someone Americans can trust to give credible advice based on solid science and real data, not a charlatan who specializes in selling expensive, unproven tests and treatments.”

Means promotes so-called “functional medicine,” a field whose theories are unsupported by data. As an example, Rasmussen cited Means’ promotion of pricey glucose monitoring tests, even though “no studies have shown that monitoring blood glucose provides any kind of health benefit to non-diabetic patients.”

“The Senate should say no to quackery and unanimously reject Casey Means,” Blackstock added.

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Defend Public Health is an all-volunteer network of public health researchers, healthcare workers, advocates and allies fighting to protect the health of all from the Trump administration's cruel attacks on proven, science-based public health policies. We believe that everyone has the right to what they need for a healthy life, regardless of race, ethnicity, religion, disability, sexual orientation, gender or gender identity.
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