Surgeon general appointee advocates for a new vision for American health care

By Morgan Sweeney
The Center Square

Surgeon General appointee Casey Means fielded pointed questions from both parties during her confirmation hearing Wednesday, while outlining a vision for American health that emphasizes prevention and addresses the root causes of disease.

While eventually, senators asked Means’ about her qualifications for the role – Means completed medical school at Stanford University and later left a surgical residency to pursue work in metabolic health – for the first rounds of questioning, senators largely focused on Means’ alignment with the “Make America Healthy Again” agenda and the ethical promotion of health programs or products.

Multiple senators, including Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana – who is himself is a medical doctor – probed Means on her view of vaccines.

In the leadup to his question, Cassidy spoke of the situation in South Carolina, where a measles outbreak that started in October has racked up nearly 1,000 cases. Most of those cases have been people under the age of 18, with about a third occurring in children under five. The state’s Department of Health has reported that 913 cases have occurred in people who are unvaccinated and a handful in those who are partially vaccinated. Twenty-six have received both doses of the MMR vaccine. There have been no reported deaths from the outbreak.

“You’re a mom. We’re on the verge of losing our measles elimination status. Would you encourage other mothers to have their children vaccinated against measles with the MMR vaccine?” Cassidy asked.

Means affirmed that she believes “vaccines save lives” and are a “key part of any infectious disease public health strategy,” but she did not say that she would issue statements as surgeon general broadly encouraging parents to vaccinate their children against measles.

Instead, she emphasized the importance of “informed consent,” something she mentioned many times, saying it was important to “[rebuilding] trust in public health.”

“I’m not an individual’s doctor, and every individual needs to talk to their doctor before putting a medication in their body,” she said.

Cassidy also asked Means about the scientific basis for linking vaccines to autism. He and others were adamant that there’s “a lot of evidence” showing there’s no connection.

“Some have been scared to vaccinate their children because they’ve been told incorrectly that vaccines cause autism. Do you believe that vaccines, whether individually or collectively, contribute to autism?” Cassidy asked.

“The reality is that we have an autism crisis that’s increasing, and this is devastating to many families, and we do not know as a medical community what causes autism,” Means replied. “The administration has just committed a huge amount of funding to look at the exposore of all environmental factors that could be contributing to autism, and until we have a clear understanding of why kids are developing this at higher rates, I think we should not leave any stones unturned.”

Others questioned Means’ promotion of various health and wellness products and programs, saying that she has repeatedly not followed Federal Trade Commission rules requiring promoters to disclose their financial relationship to the brand they’re endorsing.

Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut said that his staff found that Means had been paid by brands like Function Health, Genova Diagnostics, Daily Harvest and Zen Basil Seeds and more often than not, recommended them multiple times without making that clear.

“This seems systemic. It seems that in the majority of instances in which you were as a medical professional recommending a product, you were hiding the fact that you had a financial partnership. You seem to be in regular willful violation of the FTC rules. That is concerning,” Murphy said.

Means contested Murphy’s staff’s findings as a “false representation.”

Means said that her focus as surgeon general would be to affect a “paradigm shift” in the U.S. on how its health care system should function and the problems it seeks to address. Means described shifting from “reactive sick care” to a proactive health care system, one that is incentivized to treat root causes and help patients achieve robust health rather than treat the symptoms of chronic disease.

“Mental and physical health are unraveling from shared root causes that we can fix,” Means said, listing heart disease, diabetes, dementia and depression as some prevalent diseases that are often preventable through diet and lifestyle. “As surgeon general, I would call on every American and the Public Health Service to join in a great national healing, one that halts preventable chronic disease, makes healthy living the easiest choice, honors the body’s connection to the environment and puts America back on the road towards wholeness and health.”