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dalton99a

(93,289 posts) Wed Feb 25, 2026, 10:55 AM 9 hrs ago

A surgeon general who is not licensed to practice medicine in any state

Last edited Wed Feb 25, 2026, 11:58 AM - Edit history (2)

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/25/well/casey-means-surgeon-general.html

Casey Means, Critic of Mainstream Medicine, Poised to Become Nation’s Top Doctor
Dr. Means, a wellness influencer and President Trump’s nominee for surgeon general, will appear before a Senate committee Wednesday.
By Dani Blum
Feb. 25, 2026, 5:00 a.m. ET

Dr. Casey Means will appear before a Senate committee Wednesday to make her case to become the next surgeon general. The job would make her the face of the mainstream medical system — which Dr. Means, a wellness influencer and entrepreneur, has vehemently criticized.

Parts of Dr. Means’s résumé make her seem like a natural fit. She graduated from the Stanford School of Medicine and has worked as a biomedical researcher. She championed healthy eating and exercise as essential for good health, long before Make America Healthy Again became a political movement. And with hundreds of thousands of social media followers and a popular newsletter, Dr. Means is well-versed in communicating with the public about their health.

But Dr. Means has also repeatedly railed against the conventional medical system. She dropped out of her medical residency and does not have an active license to treat patients. She is skeptical of some vaccines and has repeated the debunked claim that they could be linked to autism. She has spoken out against bans on raw milk, which can contain dangerous bacteria. She has frequently told Americans not to trust the medical system, titling one chapter of her best-selling book: “Trust Yourself, Not Your Doctor.”

“We actually have to figure out new approaches to medicine, and that’s the kind of leadership that she’s going to bring to our country,” Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. told Fox News after President Trump nominated Dr. Means for surgeon general.

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Residency is critical for medical training and is a requirement for getting a license. Medical school is practically meaningless without also completing a residency afterward, because most of the time spent in med school is sit and read.