Deep Dive
Shownotes Transcript
What's up? Nice to meet you guys. Thanks for having us, Joe. Thanks for coming here. Um,
I'm all happy, but this is not a happy subject. I don't know. Back in October, podcaster Joe Rogan featured a brother and sister duo on a show. People want to be healthy. There's a huge system rigged against them. Casey and Callie Means are big in the wellness space. Casey, the sister, is a medical doctor. The brother, Callie, is a former food lobbyist. They each co-founded startups related to health. People know that something's not right, and people know that this...
Health issue is the tip of the iceberg. Casey Means is one of the more influential figures in the Make America Healthy Again movement. That's our colleague Christina Peterson. She's been covering the Maha movement closely. She kind of came to prominence last year when she and her brother wrote this book called Good Energy.
that is sort of examining the root causes for why America is not as healthy as it should be. Last week, President Trump nominated Casey Means to be Surgeon General, a powerful role inside Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s Department of Health and Human Services. Means' nomination has put her in the national spotlight, making her the latest and now most prominent Maha influencer, elevated by Kennedy's political rise.
The rise of RFK, he's now the nation's most powerful public health official, has created avenues in which some of these figures stand to profit. Welcome to The Journal, our show about money, business, and power. I'm Jessica Mendoza. It's Monday, May 12th. Coming up on the show, the business ties of RFK Jr.'s Maha Inner Circle.
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Before he took office as HHS Secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. gave a forceful statement to Congress. We will remove financial conflicts of interest from our agencies. We will create an honest, unbiased, gold standard science at HHS accountable to the president, to Congress, and to the American people.
Kennedy has presented himself as the antidote to business interests becoming entangled with the nation's health care. He's called out conflicts of interest between the government and big food companies and big pharma. As he's pushed to get those industries out of government, he's surrounded himself with people from another industry with growing influence. A lot of the most influential MAHA figures have businesses in the wellness industry, which is a little more lightly regulated industry.
And people that I've talked to have raised some concerns that their close alliance with RFK kind of makes it seem like the government has backed the wellness industry, that they have this sort of imprimatur of the government when that's not necessarily the case.
Some of these companies are sort of catering to health optimization, people who want to really learn a lot about their health and optimize everything they can do to be healthier and live longer. And that's just a little bit of a different emphasis than sort of traditional public health.
One recent public display of the ties between RFK Jr. and the wellness industry was at a press conference in April. Let's join me in welcoming a warrior for America's children, RFK Jr. Thank you, Governor Morrissey. At the Health and Human Services building, Kennedy announced plans to phase out some artificial food dyes. And we are going to...
We're going to get rid of the ties and one by one we're going to get rid of every ingredient and additive in school and in food that we can legally address. It had the vibe of almost a campaign event. Tons of people wearing Maha hats, apparel,
When RFK was speaking, people held up their phones to film him. It really had almost like a concert rock star vibe, more than a typical health policy press conference. And it was packed. There were tons of people. Some of the guests Kennedy brought to the press conference were more traditional, like the commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration.
Others were less so. Hi, I'm Vani Hari. I'm a food activist and author, a fellow Maha mom. Vani Hari was there, wearing a white suit with a bejeweled trim. Vani Hari, who is known as the food babe, she is someone who has long championed getting rid of certain dyes and additives out of certain foods.
And she is the co-founder of a company called Truvani, which makes protein powder, supplements, and snack bars. And she was extremely enthusiastic to be talking about the FDA's announcement that it was phasing out certain food dyes products.
It was just kind of striking to have some people on stage who were later praised by Kennedy. Thanks, Von E. Harry, who's been an extraordinary leader. The day after that press conference, Harry did a joint CNN interview, sharing top billing with the FDA commissioner.
She'd already starred with other Maha moms in a video shared on the official White House X account. The Make America Healthy Again movement is the strongest movement in America because it contains moms.
So she's someone that they've really turned to to help amplify their message. And they don't typically identify her company, but, you know, she has a very vigorous online presence. And it does seem like this is giving her even more visibility. And so all of these connections, does it violate any ethical rules or any laws? No.
Probably not. Some of these situations operate in a little bit of a gray zone. People who are coming into government do have to declare all of their financial investments. Sometimes the government asks them to divest of certain stocks. They generally cannot keep receiving a salary from the outside.
Hari is not a government employee, so she can't advocate on behalf of RFK Jr.'s movement while still running her health and wellness business. But Christina says perception matters in government. Ethics experts say most of the time the government doesn't want to give the impression of even the appearance of a conflict of interest. So that's why they would typically avoid things like that that could give the impression of using the public office for private gain.
Another person in the same bucket as Hari is Dr. Mark Hyman, another wellness startup founder that Christina noticed was in that same press conference in March. I'm a lifelong advocate for addressing chronic disease through food. Hyman sells a variety of supplements and nutrition books. He also owns a membership-based health program called Function Health. RFK Jr. said he's known Hyman for 20 years.
He talked about how he and Mark Hyman have long been friends. He gave a shout out to Mark Hyman's book. Mark Hyman says in his book, The 10 Day Sugar Detox, which I'll give a plug to his very good book. So there were just some kind of unorthodox elements of having business owners and
who didn't talk about their businesses, but stand to benefit from some of these policies and from, at a minimum, being on stage with RFK Jr. and being praised by him. Hyman's company, Function Health, closed a funding round in February that valued the company at $2.5 billion. That's up from $191 million in June of last year, according to data from PitchBook.
Hari and Hyman said they've been working on food and nutrition issues for years. And Hyman said he attended the April press conference as a private citizen and a practicing doctor. Hari said that health and human services, quote, has been a revolving door to the food and pharmaceutical industry and never given a voice to advocates and mothers like me until now. Christina, I just want to understand something. You know, a lot of people might remember Joe Biden also had influencers in his orbit and even in the White House. Right.
How is what we're seeing here different? I think what is unusual that we're seeing is this sort of intertwining of the Maha universe with HHS. And not all of this is in ways that raise eyebrows.
Some of it is just that there is a very devoted community of Maha moms, as they're called, and advocates. But I think where people are concerned is where they do enter into the official agency activities.
And are featured in their press conferences or their official communications. That's where I think things get a little blurry, according to ethics experts. And the concern specifically is, are you using government, the public office, to benefit individuals or businesses? Yes.
A spokesman for the HHS said, "It appears that The Wall Street Journal is taking issue with private citizens exercising First Amendment rights." Christina says that there are Maha influencers who are getting official roles in the government. That's after the break.
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Trump's new pick for Surgeon General, Casey Means, touts views shared by many MAHA supporters. Here she is on Tucker Carlson's podcast. All aspects of modern American society are rigged against the American patient to get us, you know, addicted to food, allegiant to pharma. Means got her medical degree from Stanford University, though she didn't finish her residency afterwards. And she doesn't have an active medical license.
She's pushed to overhaul the country's food and health systems, driven by a deep distrust of America's pharmaceutical and food industries. She's questioned medical expertise and vaccine mandates. Mien's embrace of many of these "maha" ideas started after her mother died of pancreatic cancer.
Casey Means writes in her book about how when their mother was dying in 2021, she was angered by the doctors who were pushing surgical interventions on her mother when she wanted more to preserve her quality of life.
And so she felt that that was an example of the medical establishment not giving good advice to patients and not putting their wishes first. Casey Means also owns her own wellness business. So Casey is a co-founder of a company called Levels.
that is a subscription-based app that connects to wearable glucose monitors. Levels can be used for many things, whether it's AI-powered food logging, whether it's tracking your macros, whether it's seeing... Christina also found that Means has investments and ties with other companies and people who are close to Kennedy's inner circle. For example, she's an investor in Dr. Mark Hyman's company, Function Health. And Hyman, in turn, is an advisor on Casey Means' company, Levels.
Being the nation's top doctor and having investments in the health field could be perceived as a conflict of interest. So someone like Casey Means, if she is confirmed by the Senate, would have to divest from her companies and some of these investments to become Surgeon General. That's typically what happens.
But this administration has been a little different, and they haven't always been as scrupulous about some of these matters as previous administrations have been in some of the gray zone areas. I think typically when people enter government, they are generally expected to leave their outside financial interests.
they can resume having jobs in the private sector after their stint in government is done. For example, there are some members of Kennedy's senior staff who have retained stock investments in specific companies. And ethics folks that I spoke to said it would frankly just be cleaner and less complicated if they sold those stocks.
So there's an intertwining of some of these businesses that makes it hard to say, I'm not going to make any decisions that affect this company. So that's the reason that typically people say it's just easier if you don't have those assets for your time in government. But it is clear that if confirmed a Surgeon General, Casey Means' profile would rise. The Surgeon General is tasked with providing health advice.
I think we've seen them sometimes really embrace that as a bully pulpit and be able to push certain messages out to the public. So in this instance, you know, she already has a following, but this would for sure give her a broader audience. Yeah.
And Casey's brother, Callie, is also working with the administration as a top aide to Kennedy. He's what's called a special government employee in Health and Human Services, which means that he gets to be involved in HHS decisions without having to divest, though he can't be involved with decisions that affect his financial interest.
So Callie Means has been a top Kennedy aide since the summer. He is the co-founder of a company called TruMed, whose affiliated doctors can affirm that wellness products are medically necessary so customers can buy them with health savings accounts. Which is interesting. I mean, would you... Can that be characterized as a conflict of interest at all? I mean, I think I would have to defer to like a lawyer on that. Fair. But it is...
I mean, he is a special government employee, so the rules are a little different for him. And he, you know, HHS has said that everyone has abided by the ethics laws. Callie Means declined to comment. Casey Means didn't respond to requests for comment. Casey Means has faced criticism for not finishing her residency or holding an active medical license. That's uncommon for a surgeon general. Kennedy is standing by her nomination.
Well, what's interesting is that he's really pushed back on this idea that she's not qualified because she didn't, for example, complete her surgical residency. And he has said, well, that's what makes her the best person for this job, that she has been a skeptic and that she didn't just swallow the traditional medical orthodoxy. She said, if we're really going to heal people, if we're healers...
We can't just be making our life about billing new procedures. We actually have to figure out new approaches to medicine, and that's the kind of leadership that she's going to bring to our country. So he's really leaning into that as part of his defense. So, Christina, what struck you most as you were reporting this story? I think what struck me the most was that RFK really...
has emphasized over and over again how much he wanted to weed out all conflicts of interest. So he really has made that a central core of his messaging. And so that's why it does strike me as interesting that so many people who do have companies in the health and wellness space are involved in his administration one way or another. ♪
And it may not be a full conflict of interest, but the experts that I spoke to said it does at least give the appearance of some intermingling of interests. RFK's rise and the attention to the Make America Healthy Again movement generally gives people involved in this space confidence.
more of a bigger audience, more attention to these issues. And then a few people do stand to benefit from having particular attention from RFK and a particular boost in visibility by doing public events with him. So what happens next? I mean, how likely is it that Casey Means becomes the next Surgeon General?
I think it's probably likely that she gets confirmed. Most of the president's nominees have gotten through the Senate with a handful of exceptions. So I think that there has to be a pretty compelling reason for Republican senators to vote no. And I'm not sure I see that at this point.
That's all for today, Monday, May 12th. The Journal is a co-production of Spotify and The Wall Street Journal. Additional reporting in this episode by Liz Esley White. Thanks for listening. See you tomorrow.