The Freedom From Religion Foundation is alarmed by the nomination of Casey Means for U.S. surgeon general — reflecting the Trump administration’s hostility toward science, medicine and the secular principles that uphold sound public policy.
Means is scheduled to testify in person before the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions on Wednesday, Feb. 25, after months of delay. She was originally set to appear virtually before the committee in October, but the hearing was postponed after she went into labor.
Means, who left her medical residency before completion to become a wellness influencer and tech entrepreneur, has aligned herself closely with Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a prominent vaccine skeptic and purveyor of anti-science rhetoric. The two have helped build a movement to replace medical expertise with ideology and personal “belief.” Means has expressed skepticism about parts of the childhood vaccination schedule, advised against relying on prescription medications for chronic conditions, and warned that the birth control pill “shuts down” a woman’s “life-giving nature” and reflects society’s “disrespect for life.”
“America’s top physician should defend medical science, not undermine it,” says FFRF Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor. “Means’ nomination is part of the broader effort by Kennedy’s ‘MAHA’ agenda to replace evidence-based public health with faith-based pseudoscience.”
The surgeon general’s role requires clear communication based on verifiable science and a commitment to protecting all Americans, regardless of belief. Yet Means has publicly questioned mainstream medicine, promoted unproven “metabolic health” theories, and expressed skepticism toward contraception and conventional disease treatment — views that resonate more with the MAHA crowd than with modern medicine.
Senators need to take a lesson from the Kennedy confirmation debacle. Kennedy provided enough reassurance on vaccines to convince some to vote for him — and now is betraying that trust by undermining public confidence in vaccines, slashing recommended childhood vaccines and actively defunding and sabotaging the most promising vaccine research.
“Public health must rest on evidence, not ideology or personal polemics,” Gaylor adds. “The separation between state and church was designed to keep faith and government — and by extension, science — in their proper lanes. This nomination, if approved, would dangerously blur those boundaries.”
FFRF urges the Senate to reject Means’ nomination and reaffirm the importance of secular, evidence-based decision-making in public health leadership.
The Freedom From Religion Foundation is a U.S.-based nonprofit dedicated to defending the constitutional principle of separation between state and church and educating the public on matters relating to nontheism. With about 42,000 members, FFRF is the largest association of freethinkers (atheists, agnostics and humanists) in North America. For more information, visit ffrf.org.
