The White House has changed its mind about its nomination for America’s Surgeon-General post, withdrawing the nomination of Janette Nesheiwat in favour of Casey Means, a key figure in the “Make America Healthy Again” movement.
The decision came a day before Nesheiwat, a physician and former Fox News medical commentator, was scheduled to appear before the Senate Health, Education, Labour and Pensions Committee on Thursday for a confirmation hearing, reports The Washington Post.
She faced intense conservative criticism for her past advocacy for coronavirus vaccines and scrutiny of her medical education claims.
Casey Means, with her brother, Calley Means, are key allies to Robert F Kennedy Jr, both helping to drive momentum behind Kennedy’s MAHA initiative to tackle chronic disease and childhood illness, which gained prominence during the campaign season.
Calley Means serves as a White House senior adviser focusing on food and other MAHA-related health issues.
“Casey has impeccable ‘MAHA’ credentials, and will work closely with our wonderful Secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., to ensure a successful implementation of our agenda … to reverse the Chronic Disease Epidemic, and ensure Great Health, in the future, for ALL Americans,” President Donald Trump wrote in a Truth Social post last week. “Her academic achievements, with her life’s work, are absolutely outstanding.”
Casey Means has said she earned a medical degree at Stanford University but dropped out of a residency programme because she was frustrated the healthcare system did not focus enough on the root causes of poor health.
She went on to become a chronic-disease entrepreneur and health influencer with a large social media following.
Last year Trump officials considered her to run the Food and Drug Administration, The Washington Post previously reported.
Means emphasises food and nutrition in her messaging but has also raised concerns about vaccines.
“Yeah, I bet that one vaccine probably isn’t causing autism, but what about the 20 that they are getting before 18 months?” Means is quoted as saying on a podcast, while in a TV interview, she questioned whether infants should be vaccinated for hepatitis B.
Trump said Nesheiwat would work “in another capacity at HHS”.
Nesheiwat’s selection in November prompted an uproar from some conservative activists angered by her statements early in the coronavirus pandemic praising vaccines and masking.
Autism
White House officials did not immediately return a request for comment on why her nomination was pulled.
Laura Loomer, a far-right activist who successfully pushed for the firings of several national security officials, also targeted Nesheiwat, recently describing her in an X post as a “pro-Covid vaccine nepo appointee”.
The critiques escalated after CBS News reported last month that Nesheiwat misrepresented her educational credentials, listing a medical degree from the University of Arkansas School of Medicine when she actually earned the degree from the American University of the Caribbean School of Medicine.
Liz Wheeler, a conservative media figure who has been highly critical of Nesheiwat since her selection, praised the White House decision to pull the nomination, describing her on X as “a Covid freak who supported masking kids, called the mRNA jab a ‘gift from God,’ and thanked Facebook for censoring ‘anti-vax’ info”.
Wheeler was referencing a 2021 news opinion piece in which Nesheiwat called “miraculous” coronavirus vaccines “a gift from God”, and television appearances in 2021 supporting children masking in schools to avoid the highly contagious Delta variant.
Peter Hotez, a paediatrician and prominent vaccine proponent whom Nesheiwat has praised, said she offered a bright spot for public health in an administration in which high-profile vaccine critics serve in top federal health roles.
“She was sincere and really positive about vaccines and immunisation and would have been good at carrying that message,” said Hotez, co-director of the Texas Children’s Hospital Centre for Vaccine Development.
In recent years, Nesheiwat has adopted a more critical tone toward Covid-19 vaccines, blasting mandates and calling the addition of them to routine childhood immunisation schedule unethical.
She is not the only Trump administration nomination to fall apart. Chad Chronister, a Florida sheriff tapped to head the Drug Enforcement Administration, withdrew after conservative criticism of his enforcement of pandemic restrictions, including arresting a pastor who held large church services in March 2020 in defiance of health orders.
And vaccine views also drove the White House in March to withdraw the nomination of Dave Weldon to lead the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention. In that case, Weldon’s past promotion of the false claims that vaccines can cause autism raised concerns about political consequences.
FDA new vaccines boss
Meanwhile, the FDA has named Dr Vinay Prasad to lead the agency’s Centre for Biologics Evaluation and Research, which oversees vaccines, blood supply, and gene therapies.
The appointment, replacing Dr Peter Marks, has received some backlash from social media users, reports The Independent.
Prasad, who enjoys a huge following on social media, has, in the past, been accused of spreading misinformation about Covid vaccines by the Association of Immunisation Managers. He has also criticised the decision to approve the shots for children, and has frequently even criticised the FDA itself.
Raised in Cleveland, Ohio, Prasad was born to immigrant parents and attended Michigan State University, earning degrees in philosophy and physiology before moving to the University of Chicago for his medical degree and Johns Hopkins University for a master’s in public health.
He also completed a fellowship in oncology at the National Cancer Institute and in haematology at the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute.
Now a professor of epidemiology, biostatistics, and medicine at University of California-San Francisco and a practicing haematologist oncologist at San Francisco General Hospital, he has authored more than 4 000 peer-review papers and published two books.
Views on vaccines
Prasad’s views on vaccines are a relatively mixed bag. He has criticised Kennedy’s conspiracy theories linking certain vaccination to autism, but also believes that children should not have the Covid vaccine.
“For years, RFK Jr. has pushed the long-debunked link between the MMR (measles, mumps, and rubella) vaccine and autism. He has, in fact, made millions from peddling this bunk,” Prasad said last November.
And while saying the CDC should pull the Covid shot for kids, “because there is no randomised evidence that kids ever benefit (in terms of real clinical outcomes) from this shot, and no evidence of any sort that a kid born today will need one in the future”, he has also described the vaccine itself as “miraculous” and life-saving.
Other views
In the past, he has also said the FDA is a failure, rubber stamping “too many useless products”, and that withdrawing from the WHO is in America’s interest.
The CDC, he said, had done a “bad job”, accusing it of using “propaganda” in its response to the Covid pandemic.
He is a member of Urgency of Normal: a group formed in support of ending pandemic precautions for children.
See more from MedicalBrief archives:
Top FDA boss resigns over RFK Jr’s ‘misinformation’
Kennedy’s conflicting advice leave US doctors frustrated
Nobel winners speak out against Trump’s conspiracy-theorist health boss