President Donald Trump has selected a conspiracy theorist and self-styled Make America Healthy Again “wellness influencer” who is not currently licensed to practice medicine to be the nation’s next Surgeon General.
Trump made the new pick after withdrawing his initial choice days before she was scheduled to go before the U.S. Senate for a confirmation hearing.
In a Truth Social post on Wednesday, Trump said he was choosing Dr. Casey Means, a practitioner of so-called “functional medicine” who is a close ally of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr, citing her “impeccable ‘MAHA’ credentials.”
He claimed Means, who completed her initial medical education at Stanford University’s medical school but dropped out of an ear, nose and throat residency program at the University of Oregon and currently has no active medical license, would “work closely” with Kennedy “to ensure a successful implementation of our Agenda in order to reverse the Chronic Disease Epidemic, and ensure Great Health, in the future, for ALL Americans.”
Trump’s decision to nominate Means came after he made the decision to withdraw his initial pick, Dr Janette Nesheiwat, marking the second time one of his top health care policy picks has faltered before being considered by the U.S. Senate.
Nesheiwat, a former Fox News contributor who is also the sister-in-law of former Trump White House National Security Adviser Mike Waltz, had been selected to be one of the country’s top public health officials largely on the strength of her record as a television personality.
But as her confirmation hearing approached, Nesheiwat had become a magnet for controversy after self-styled “investigative journalist” and conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer pushed for Trump to pull her nomination over her ties to Waltz and her support for vaccination against COVID-19 rendered her “unfit” for the job.
In a post on X (formerly Twitter) she accused Nesheiwat of being “not ideologically aligned with Donald Trump or his admin’s health initiatives.”
“She used her access to Fox News to promote the dangerous Covid vaccine, which is now killing millions of people. She tried to shame people who didn’t take the vaccine by calling them global health threats,” Loomer said.
Loomer’s push to oust Nesheiwat came on the heels of a CBS News report that called into question whether she’d been forthright about her education and background.
Last month, the television network reported that Nesheiwat had listed herself on LinkedIn as a graduate of the University of Arkansas School of Medicine, the institution where she completed her medical residency.
The board-certified physician actually attended and earned her doctoral degree from American University of the Caribbean (AUC) School of Medicine, which is located on the Caribbean island of St Maarten.
It’s not uncommon for Americans to attend medical schools in the Caribbean, as those schools are known as having slightly more relaxed admissions standards than schools in the United States.
But those schools still teach a standard medical curriculum and award a Doctor of Medicine degree. At AUC, students complete a four-year program of two years in a classroom and an additional two years in clinical rotations at a licensed medical facility. CBS News reported Nesheiwat was enrolled there for six years, from 2000 to 2006.
Completing one’s medical education after studying abroad also requires passing the three-step United States Medical Licensing Examination administered by the Federation of State Medical Boards and the National Board of Medical Examiners.
Passing the USMLE is also required for aspiring physicians to be eligible for residency programs at American hospitals, the final step in education before being permitted to practice medicine.
It’s at the University of Arkansas where Nesheiwat completed her medical education with a multi-year residency.
Jerome Adams, the former Surgeon General who served in that role during the first Trump administration, wrote on X that he did not know what was “more troubling” to him, the possibility that “stigma against foreign medical graduates” would have led to Nesheiwat’s nomination being withdrawn, or the possibility that it would have been due to her support for vaccines.
“The FMG talk is ill informed and troubling. Much of our U.S. medical care (esp rural) depends on foreign grads. And Dr. N completed a U.S. residency (which is where you really learn how to practice medicine anyway). Hoping this doesn’t stigmatize docs who trained outside U.S.,” he added.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
