Trump's Weird Choice for Surgeon General

RFK Jr choice recommends psychedelics. Warns against vaccines and GMOs.

May 16, 2025

On May 7 President Donald Trump announced his intention to appoint Casey Means as Surgeon General of the United States. The nomination has come under some question because while she graduated Stanford University medical school, Means dropped out of her residency program and never became a doctor. However the reasons to question her nomination are a bit more substantial than that.

A friend of HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who recommended her to Trump as “fantastic,” Means is an advocate and practitioner of the use of illegal psychedelic drugs, including psilocybin and ecstasy, for medical purposes. https://apnews.com/article/means-trump-surgeon-general-mushrooms-psychedelic-drugs-72c22ed077409b4bb865214e7ef304a8 . Her brother, Calley Means, is a Trump administration health advisor and investor in psychedelic biopharmaceutical start-up companies. In 2024 the two co-authored a book entitled Good Energy, making the case for psychedelic therapy.

According to Means. “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.” Terming psychedelic therapy “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.” After eating the fungi, 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.”

In October 2024, Means published a newsletter saying that she had also used psychedelics to help her make “space to find love at 35.”

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 kookery does not stop at recommending therapy using illegal psychedelics. She is an opponent of the use of vaccines, thereby making her a clear and present danger to American public health. She also is against the raising or consumption of genetically modified organisms (GMOs), which constitute seventy percent of US agriculture today, making her a threat not only America’s, but the world’s food supply. For the record, contrary to anti-science activists, there is no evidence whatsoever that GMO foods are in any way 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 simply represents a more precise way to modify crops in ways that benefit human consumption, and, unlike wild plants or pre GMO crops, they have been tested by scientists for safety.

Means opposes the use of pesticides in agriculture. By creating better plant defenses against insects, genetic engineering enables sharp reduction in the use of pesticides. In fact in her 1961 book Silent Spring, no less an environmental icon that Rachel Carson called for the development of such technology. But Means opposes that too.

Means opposition to scientific medicine and scientific agriculture is firmly rooted in New Age thought. Here is some or her advice, quoted verbatim from her October 2024 newsletter. https://www.caseymeans.com/learn/newsletter-32

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!):

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.
I went to weekly group meditations and spiritual lectures at Self Realization Fellowship in order to tune in with Spirit.
I worked with a spiritual medium who helped me try to connect with my spirit guides for support and guidance.
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).
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.
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!
I pursued visualization techniques like the “Silva Method” that helped me “see” my visions for the future.
I did plant medicine experiences with trusted guides and wrote extensively about my experience and insights. 🍄
I read a LOT of poetry about love: Cesar Vallejo, Buson, Billy Collins, Abu Sa'id Abul Khayr, ee cumings, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Frederick Morgan, Isobel Thrilling, Kathleen Jamie, Kay Ryan, Kuan Tao-Sheng, Louise Bogan, Linda Paston, Louise Gluck, Marina Tsvetaeva, Mark Neppo, Mary Oliver, Maxine Kumin, Otero Silva, Nina Cassain, Kay Ryan Pablo Neurda, Rilke, Risa Kaparo, Sahabi, Rumi, Susan Olds, Sylvia Plath, Theodore Roethke… these are just a few of the poets I meditated on during this journey. I remember reflecting so much on this poem by Kay Ryan, “Stardust”:

In order to get “stardust,” I wanted to make myself a “perfect plane - something still”...

I needed to ground and be present. I needed to stop traveling every weekend and saying yes to everything for fear of missing out (FOMO) and disappointing people (remember, every “yes” is actually a “no” to something else).

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. Without doubt she would make an excellent high priestess for a pagan cult.

But it would be a truly sad turn of events if such a person were confirmed as Surgeon General of the United States of America, a nation whose scientific brilliance once both led and astounded the world.

Dr. Robert Zubrin @robert_zubrin an aerospace engineer and author of 12 books, including most recently The New World on Mars: What We Can Create on the Red Planet https://www.amazon.com/New-World-Mars-Create-Planet/dp/1635768802/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&dib_tag=se&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.7CO4pdRvL8H17LVNWUDSYa0KKnyJ_MfnhzkY4QSKkbRSOu2SyePr4Q9tjEhq2rw7ns1I7UqAn8e0Ok2iolwuil9DilwIyEMrY6Iomxdz5pQI1DMWAA_ECM3DM9Gx8vLpGzOvGCTAZTlGv6YBWWBFHkXsxf0AkVZnhxqeLqwa2B9aF1ngeShGrYvBBKiwJOD773Y4VoYSXM_pWDZ3Du1DqHDzwoy8h5mwXnAxzdyyClc.b4Kc23jvkxFxdvEyH657niKeg07Ew0m7-TVo1Axvs0A&qid=1730311816&sr=8-1