What Should We Make of Casey Means? A Call to Listen, Not Just React

President Trump’s nomination of Dr. Casey Means for Surgeon General has stirred a lot of controversy—some of it justified, much of it predictable. She’s associated with RFK Jr. and the “Make America Healthy Again” campaign. Her medical license is currently inactive. Critics are already lining up to discredit her, often without looking at the full picture.

So here’s what I want to offer: not an endorsement, but an invitation to listen.

I’m a nurse. I’ve worked in functional medicine. I’ve followed Casey Means for years. I’ve used the Levels product she co-founded. It wasn’t cheap, but it was helpful—and the principle behind it made sense: track your body, learn how it responds to food, and use that data to prevent disease, not just treat it after the fact.

One major criticism circulating right now is that her medical license is inactive. That’s true. But here’s the deeper context: she walked away from clinical practice because she couldn’t practice the kind of medicine she believes in. Not without compromising her values. Not within a system that treats symptoms instead of causes—and profits when people stay sick.

From what I see, she moved from clinical care to entrepreneurship and health technology not to escape medicine, but to change it. Now, she seems to be shifting into public health and policy—where the reach is bigger and the stakes are higher. If you believe the system is broken, why wouldn’t you try to influence it from the top down?

Let me be clear: preventing illness isn’t anti-science. And it’s definitely not anti-medication. We need good drugs. They save lives. But medication shouldn’t always be the first thing we reach for. In a system built on treating illness for profit, we forget that food, rest, movement, and connection are foundational. That’s the model Dr. Means has been advocating for.

And that’s exactly why this appointment is so politically complicated. Because when prevention becomes policy, it disrupts powerful interests. It threatens Big Pharma’s profits. It challenges Big Food’s ingredients list. It doesn’t benefit the weight loss industry or the processed food lobby. So of course it will be met with resistance—especially when it comes from inside a Trump administration that many people already distrust (myself included).

We’re already being crushed by the cost of drugs. We’re arguing over which foods deserve public assistance. Our hospitals are overflowing, our doctors are burned out, and our population is sick. Maybe it’s time we get serious about fixing that—not with slogans, but with real food, real prevention, and real policy change.

I don’t know where Casey Means stands today on every issue. I don’t know how much influence she will have—or whether she can avoid being used as window dressing for a dangerous administration. But I do believe this:

Her core message still makes sense.

Eat whole food.

Prevent what you can.

Address the root causes.

Stay curious.

So instead of jumping to extremes—either full support or full dismissal—maybe we can try something harder: watching carefully, listening closely, and asking smarter questions about how healthcare could actually serve people instead of profits.

That’s not being naïve. That’s being engaged.