Trump Withdraws Wellness Influencer And Maha Activist Casey Means As Surgeon General Nominee

Trump ends MAHA activistic and wellness influencer Casey Means’s bid for surgeon general

On Thursday nan president announced he is nominating Nicole Saphier, a radiologist and Fox News contributor, arsenic nan nation’s apical doctor

By Adam Kovac edited by Claire Cameron

Brendan SMIALOWSKI / AFP via Getty Images

Make America Health Again (MAHA) activistic and wellness influencer Casey Means is retired of nan moving to beryllium President Donald Trump’s nominee for surgeon general. On Thursday nan president announced that he is nominating radiologist and Fox News contributor Nicole Saphier for nan occupation instead—she is Trump’s 3rd prime to beryllium nan “nation’s doctor” since his 2nd word successful agency began.

The determination to propulsion Means from nan information comes a small little than a twelvemonth aft Trump first tapped her for nan domiciled successful May 2025. Means' way to nan occupation had go mired successful nan Senate, however, amid increasing interest among lawmakers, including from Republican legislator and expert Bill Cassidy, complete her stance connected vaccines, abortion pills and replacement medicine.

A postgraduate of nan Stanford School of Medicine, Means dropped retired of a surgical residency successful 2018 and founded an replacement medicine practice. She has besides co-authored a book that promotes integrated foods and criticizes processed foods and sugars arsenic being sources of “bad energy.” A adjacent state of Department of Health and Human Services leader Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Means has claimed that improper diet, mediocre slumber and deficiency of workout are responsible for a number of ailments, including diabetes, crab and Alzheimer’s disease. Means cofounded a "functional medicine" startup called Levels, which markets glucose monitors to patient people.

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Trump's caller nominee Saphier is simply a radiologist and head of bosom imaging astatine New York City’s Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. She holds a aesculapian grade from nan Russ University School of Medicine, and completed a residency astatine Maricopa Integrated Health Systems and a fellowship astatine nan Mayo Clinic.

The replacement of Means pinch Saphier drew cautious praise from healthcare advocates. Anahita Dua, a surgeon and laminitis and chair of Healthcare for Action, a Democratic healthcare group, said she was "grateful" that Trump pulled Means' nomination.

"Saphier astatine slightest has existent world acquisition pinch treating patients and a amended knowing of nan ins and outs of our healthcare system, whereas Means had zero acquisition successful nan field," she said successful a statement. "It is absorbing that President Trump has elevated yet different personification tied to Fox News. As a physician, I americium hopeful that Saphier will enactment existent to subject and facts if she so becomes nan adjacent Surgeon General of nan United States."

Others were little optimistic. Amira Roess, a professor of world wellness and epidemiology astatine George Mason University's College of Public Health, based on that nan move "probably doesn't matter each that much" arsenic nan administration's extremity is "to relax regulations meant to protect our air, water, nutrient and medicine. Whoever is nan look of that arsenic Surgeon General is improbable to beryllium capable to do thing to reverse those declines."

Saphier's past comments person put her astatine likelihood pinch immoderate aesculapian professionals, said Mariah Wellman, an adjunct professor astatine Michigan State University and writer of In Search of Wellness: How societal media influencers transformed an industry. While dismissing Means america "a affirmative move because she is much wellness influencer than aesculapian professional," Wellman said successful a connection that she is unsure if Saphier is much aliases little apt to beryllium confirmed.

"While she is simply a practicing physician, she is besides an writer whose 2 books bespeak her views connected nationalist wellness which are staunchly rooted successful MAHA ideology. In her 2020 book, Saphier described her belief that wellness is firmly nan individual's work and blamed precocious healthcare costs connected American citizens' manner decisions. In her 2021 book, she criticized pandemic-era shutdowns and schoolhouse closures, nan usage of look masks, and nan World Health Organization's consequence efforts," said Wellman.

Saphier is chiefly known for her objective activity and arsenic a contributor to Fox News and Fox Business. She is besides nan writer of 2 books astir healthcare: Make America Healthy Again: How Bad Behavior and Big Government Caused a Trillion-Dollar Crisis, and Panic Attack: Playing Politics With Science successful nan Fight Against COVID-19.

The erstwhile book centered astir nan conception of individual work successful healthcare; Saphier argues that starring healthier lifestyles, and not socialized medicine, is nan cardinal to reducing nan costs of treatment. In nan second book, she accuses Democratic leaders of harmful actions specified arsenic keeping schools closed during nan pandemic and based on “knee-jerk anti-Trumpism” has played a domiciled successful nan politicization of science.

“Nicole is simply a STAR expert who has spent her profession guiding women facing bosom crab done their test and curen while tirelessly advocating to summation early crab discovery and prevention, while astatine nan aforesaid clip moving pinch men and women connected each different forms of crab diagnoses and treatments,” Trump said successful a societal media post. “She is besides an INCREDIBLE COMMUNICATOR, who makes analyzable wellness issues much easy understood by each Americans. Dr. Nicole Saphier will do awesome things for our Country, and help, ‘MAKE AMERICA HEALTHY AGAIN.’”

Neither nan White House aliases HHS replied to requests for comment.

Editor's note: This is simply a processing communicative and whitethorn beryllium updated.