The day before she was scheduled to appear for her Senate confirmation hearing, President Trump's nominee for surgeon general was replaced. Trump influencer Laura Loomer had called for pulling the nomination of Dr. Janette Nesheiwat, ABC News reports. Her objections included Nesheiwat calling the COVID-19 vaccine "a gift from God" in a 2021 opinion piece for Fox News before coming out against a vaccine mandate for children a year later. Trump's new nominee is Dr. Casey Means, a wellness influencer and ally of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. whose brother, Calley Means, is a senior White House adviser, per the AP.
When he announced his selection of Nesheiwat in November, Trump called her a "fierce advocate and strong communicator for preventive medicine and public health." Loomer has successfully lobbied Trump to remove other appointees, including national security adviser Mike Waltz. "She makes recommendations of things and people, and sometimes I listen to those recommendations, like I do with everybody," Trump said last month, per ABC. Loomer accused Nesheiwat, who is Waltz's sister-in-law, in a social media post on Sunday of being "entangled in an intricate medical malpractice litigation," per NBC News.
Means has never worked in government. After receiving a medical degree from Stanford, she quit her surgical residency program, saying she was disillusioned with conventional medicine. She went on to found a health tech company. Means also derives income from dietary supplements, creams, and other products sponsored on her social media accounts. Trump said she'll work with Kennedy, the Health and Human Services secretary, on his Make America Healthy Again agenda, per NBC. Nesheiwat will stay with the administration, Trump said, and also work with Kennedy. The president wrote in a post that Means' "academic achievements, together with her life's work, are absolutely outstanding." (More President Trump stories.)
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