Copyright New York Daily News
The Senate confirmation hearing for President Trump’s surgeon general pick was postponed indefinitely Thursday after the nominee, health influencer and entrepreneur Dr. Casey Means, went into labor. “Everyone’s happy for Dr. Means and her family,” said Emily Hilliard, deputy press secretary for the Health and Human Services Department. “This is one of the few times in life it’s easy to ask to move a Senate hearing!” Means, 38, was scheduled to appear virtually before the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) from Kilauea, Hawaii. Nominated five months ago, she was expected to explain some of her controversial medical positions and sketch out her plan to end chronic diseases by homing in on their root causes. That notion is favored by the so-called Make America Healthy Again movement launched by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Means was more than 40 weeks pregnant, The Washington Post reported, and was two days past her due date, according to CNN. Means is a licensed physician educated at Stanford University, though her license is inactive and will expire at the end of this year. She skipped out mid-residency in Oregon after deciding that traditional medicine relied too heavily on prescription drugs to treat chronic-disease symptoms rather than exploring their underlying causes, which she believes are rooted in “metabolic dysfunction.” One of her pillars is what she calls “plant medicine,” which includes using psychedelic mushrooms to treat certain conditions, even though they’re still illegal under federal law and considered too unpredictable to use even in clinical settings. She explained her position at length in “Good Energy,” the 2024 book she co-authored with brother Calley Means, a health entrepreneur and Trump administration health adviser. There was no firm indication of when the confirmation hearing would be rescheduled, though HELP Committee Chairman Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) said on X that the committee would welcome Means back “when she is ready.” This is the first child for Dr. Means and her husband, Brian Nickerson, the founder of an influencer video marketing company.
