Uproar over surgeon general pick exposes MAHA factions among RFK Jr. allies
Casey Means, a prominent nutrition advocate in the Make America Healthy Again movement, has been described as insufficiently critical of vaccines.
The backlash to President Donald Trump’s new surgeon general nominee, an ally of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., has exposed divisions in the nascent “Make America Healthy Again” movement as it gains political power.
Casey Means, the nominee, has been a central figure in the movement and key Kennedy ally. She promotes diet as a root cause of illness and chronic disease, echoing Kennedy’s focus on nutrition.
Trump praised Means as someone who holds “impeccable MAHA credentials,” but influential people in Kennedy’s orbit countered that she is insufficiently devoted to opposing vaccines, criticizing Means within hours of the announcement and describing her as unqualified.
In posts on X, the primary social media platform for the anti-vaccine movement, some vocal allies of Kennedy’s said the selection shows he lacks influence in the Trump administration.
“The new Surgeon General has never called for the COVID shots to be pulled off the market. That’s why she was picked,” Mary Talley Bowden, founder of the anti-coronavirus vaccine group Americans for Health Freedom, posted on X. “Kennedy is powerless.”
she reposted a post from an X account critical of vaccines that cited her skepticism of hepatitis B vaccines for children.
Calley Means praised his sister’s qualifications.
“In the last 24 hours, Casey has been called an unqualified hippie and an establishment plant,” Calley Means said in an interview. “It is unsurprising that Secretary Kennedy and Casey will have many nonsensical attacks thrown on them as they work to reform the largest industry in the United States.”
Craig Spencer, an associate professor of public health and emergency medicine at Brown University who monitors the anti-vaccine movement, said the vitriol leveled at Means reveals the infighting in the coalition.
“Honestly for me it was quite unexpected, but I think it also just goes to show how nebulous or undefined MAHA is,” Spencer said. “It’s a year old and it includes under a tent people who have been working for decades on things like organic foods, wellness influencers, as well as people whose main [belief] is mRNA vaccines are the devil and they are killing people.”
Casey Means has made critical comments about vaccines, including suggesting the dozens of shots recommended in the childhood immunization schedule can harm children.
MAHA influencers focused on food cheered Means’s nomination.
“Dr. Means knows that food is medicine and there couldn’t be a better nomination for this position at HHS,” food blogger Vani Hari posted on her Instagram Stories.
Means also drew praise from prominent conservatives.
“It’s a radical mindset change to acknowledge that our way of life has led us to our health crisis and that big changes need to be made to our habits. Casey has calmly, factually and accurately communicated correlation and causation and opened more people’s eyes to this reality than anyone I can think of,” Liz Wheeler, a conservative media figure who had blasted Nesheiwat, posted on X.
Trump has elevated critics of coronavirus vaccines to important roles in federal health agencies, and Kennedy has challenged long-standing vaccination policies. But Trump appointees’ criticism usually concerns vaccine mandates and administering the shots to children, rather than trying to remove them from the market, as some anti-vaccine supporters of Kennedy have sought.
Before joining the Cabinet, Kennedy straddled the food and vaccine branches of MAHA. But his statement in support of Means focused on metabolic disorders and the nation’s food.
Spencer and Smith also said it was striking that critics of Means emphasized that she did not complete her residency in surgery (which she attributed to disillusionment with the health-care system’s failure to focus on prevention) and her medical license in Oregon is currently inactive. Others in the movement who have been scrutinized by medical regulators or have lesser credentials have not received the same treatment, they said.
“The attacks that Casey is unqualified because she left the medical system completely miss the point of what we are trying to accomplish with MAHA,” Kennedy posted Thursday. “Casey is the perfect choice for Surgeon General precisely because she left the traditional medical system — not in spite of it.”
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