Trump’s Bizarre Pick for Surgeon General

P resident Trump’s nominee for surgeon general, Casey Means, will soon appear before the Senate for confirmation hearings. The nomination, first made on May 7, has come under some question. While Means graduated from the Stanford University School of Medicine, she later dropped out of her residency program. However, the reasons senators should be skeptical of this nomination are more substantial.

A friend of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has recommended her to Trump as a “fantastic” candidate, Means is an advocate and practitioner of the use of illegal psychedelic drugs, including psilocybin and ecstasy, for medical purposes. Her brother, Calley Means, is a Trump administration health adviser and investor in biopharmaceutical start-up companies. In 2024, the two co-wrote a book titled Good Energy, making the case for “psychedelic therapy.”

According to the Means, in the book, “Strong scientific evidence suggests that this psychedelic therapy can be one of the most meaningful experiences of life for some people, as they have been for me.” Referring to her use of psychedelics as “plant medicine,” Means says she took magic mushrooms in 2021, after she was inspired by “an internal voice that whispered: it’s time to prepare.” Soon, she says, “I felt myself as part of an infinite and unbroken series of cosmic nesting dolls of millions of mothers and babies before me from the beginning of life. . . . Psilocybin can be a doorway to a different reality that is free from the limiting beliefs of my ego, feelings, and personal history.”

Psilocybin is illegal under federal law. It’s listed as a Schedule 1 drug, defined as a substance “with no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse.”

Means does not stop at recommending therapy with illegal psychedelics. She is also skeptical of vaccines, as well as of the use of pesticides and of genetically modified organisms in agriculture. For the record, GMOs constitute 70 percent of U.S. agriculture today, and there is no evidence that GMO foods are less healthy than natural foods. In fact, all organisms have been continually genetically modified by evolution. However, natural selection imposes no imperative for an organism to make itself safe and nutritious for consumption by its predators. (Quite the contrary, it frequently benefits a wild plant species to be toxic, and prior to their modification by human agriculturalists, many were.) GMO technology is simply a more precise way of modifying crops in ways that benefit humans, and GMOs, unlike many wild plants or pre-GMO crops, have been tested by scientists for safety. Moreover, genetic engineering creates better plant defenses against insects, which can enable a sharp reduction in the use of pesticides.

Means’s views on medicine and agriculture are firmly rooted in New Age thought. Here is some of her advice, quoted verbatim from an October 2024 newsletter:

EMBRACE THE “WOO WOO” (AKA, THE MYSTERY)

There were so many “out there” things I did to try to tap into the “mystical” side of evolving my consciousness and ultimately being ready for partnership. Here are a few (these are NOT necessarily recommendations, but they were part of my journey!):

1. I set up a small meditation shrine in my house and prayed to photos of my ancestors asking for support on my personal journey, and wrote mantras and manifestations on small pieces of paper and tucked them around the shrine.
2. I went to weekly group meditations and spiritual lectures at Self Realization Fellowship in order to tune in with Spirit.
3. I worked with a spiritual medium who helped me try to connect with my spirit guides for support and guidance.
4. I did full moon ceremonies with grounded, powerful women where we called in abundance and let go of what wasn’t serving us, and amplified each others’ dreams. (I love this book: Lunar Abundance).
5. I hiked alone and talked (literally out loud) to the trees, letting them know I was ready for partnership, and asking them if they could help.
6. I made wishes on heads-up pennies, I made wishes when the clock struck 11:11, and I made wishes on the first stars I saw in the night sky!
7. I pursued visualization techniques like the “Silva Method” that helped me “see” my visions for the future.
8. I did plant medicine experiences with trusted guides and wrote extensively about my experience and insights. 🍄

. . . In the end, I’m not sure what worked and what didn’t, but it all meant something to me in setting my focus and energy, and taking that positive action created magic.

There you have it. Means knows all about magic. That qualifies her to be high priestess of a pagan sect. It does not qualify her to be surgeon general of the United States. The Senate should reject her nomination.