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center for science in the public interest
Senators Urged to Oppose 'Wholly Unqualified' Trump Surgeon General Nominee
The coalition noted that Dr. Casey Means does not have an active medical license and "has expressed misinformed and conspiratorial thinking on matters of public health."
Jul 25, 2025
In a Friday letter to senators, 32 consumer, health, and other advocacy groups argued that Dr. Casey Means, President Donald Trump's proposed surgeon general, "is not a serious nominee and is wholly unqualified to serve as a lead U.S. public health official."
Trump initially chose Dr. Janette Nesheiwat, a Fox News contributor and medical director of an urgent care network, for the post. However, amid scrutiny of how Nesheiwat portrayed her credentials, the president announced Means as his new pick in a May social media post, touting her commitment to the administration's "Make America Healthy Again" (MAHA) agenda.
"Casey has impeccable 'MAHA' credentials, and will work closely with our wonderful Secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., to ensure a successful implementation of our Agenda in order to reverse the Chronic Disease Epidemic, and ensure Great Health, in the future, for ALL Americans," Trump said. "Her academic achievements, together with her life's work, are absolutely outstanding. Dr. Casey Means has the potential to be one of the finest Surgeon Generals in United States History. Congratulations to Casey! Secretary Kennedy looks forward to working with Dr. Janette Nesheiwat in another capacity at HHS."
While Means has a medical degree from the Stanford School of Medicine, "her Oregon medical license has been inactive since 2019," according to Newsweek reporting cited in the Friday letter. The coalition highlighted that Means "dropped out of her surgical residency before completing it," and "states that it was after leaving traditional medical practice that she began to 'understand the real reasons why people get sick' and properly treat them."
"The range of unscientific ideas, wellness products, and conspiratorial claims that Means is associated with makes her a less-than-ideal candidate."
"Colleagues from her residency have criticized her for wrongly perpetuating the idea that modern medicine is a conspiracy to keep people sick," the groups wrote. "Indeed, in her blog posts and interviews as a wellness influencer, Means has expressed misinformed and conspiratorial thinking on matters of public health. She has called birth control pills a 'disrespect of life.'"
Means has "declined to distance herself from anti-vaccine positions espoused" by Kennedy, the letter notes. She has also "refused to say if she thinks vaccines are effective, and has even expressed skepticism about the hepatitis B vaccination for babies."
The letter also warns of "potential conflicts of interest," explaining that "she founded and is the chief medical officer of Levels, a membership-based continuous glucose monitoring technology company. If she does not step down from this role and divest from the company, she will likely be engaging directly on matters as surgeon general from which she stands to personally profit."
One of the surgeon general's primary responsibilities is leading the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps, which is made up of thousands of civil servants—including many "subject matter experts who have already been wrongfully terminated by the Trump administration and by directives from Secretary Kennedy," the letter says. Means "may be out of her depth" in this role, as "she has little to no managerial experience in the context of government agencies or scientific research."
The other fundamental responsibility of the job is educating the public about the best available science and issuing public health advisories. According to the letter, "The range of unscientific ideas, wellness products, and conspiratorial claims that Means is associated with makes her a less-than-ideal candidate to serve in a role that requires being a credible health communicator for the country and upholding sound science."
"These are seriously disqualifying characteristics for the surgeon general of the U.S. and the Trump administration should immediately rescind Means' nomination for this position," the coalition concluded. "If they do not, and her confirmation proceeds to the Senate floor, senators must vote no."
The coalition is co-led by Public Citizen and the Center for Science in the Public Interest. Other members include AFL-CIO, Autistic Self Advocacy Network, Doctors for America, Healthy Schools Campaign, Labor Campaign for Single Payer, MomsRising, National Nurses United, and Progressive Democrats of America.
The U.S. Senate, which is narrowly controlled by Republicans, hasn't yet formally rejected any Trump nominees, though Vice President JD Vance broke a tie to confirm Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, and over 20 nominations have been withdrawn, according to a tracker maintained by the Partnership for Public Service and The Washington Post.
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'Win for Public Health' as FDA Bans Carcinogenic Red Dye No. 3 in Food and Drinks
"At long last, the FDA is ending the regulatory paradox of Red 3 being illegal for use in lipstick, but perfectly legal to feed to children in the form of candy," said one advocate.
Jan 15, 2025
It's been used to color everything from candy to soft drinks to even watermelon—but after decades of knowing that it causes cancer, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration is finally banning erythrosine, popularly known as Red Dye No. 3, in foods and beverages.
Red Dye No. 3—commonly used to color maraschino cherries, fruit cocktails, toaster pastries, sodas, seasonal candies, cough syrups, and many other orally consumed products—has been known to cause cancer in animals since the 1980s. It has been banned in cosmetics since 1990. Manufacturers have until January 2027 to remove the toxic additive from products subject to the ban.
"This is exactly the action we need to see from the FDA."
"Because the FDA failed to uphold its legal obligation to fully ban cancer-causing additives, Red 3 remained permitted in foods, supplements, and oral drugs more than 34 years later," the Center for Science in the Public Interest said in a statement Wednesday. "That changed on January 16, 2025, thanks to a color additive petition filed by CSPI in 2022."
CSPI called the ban "a win for public health."
"At long last, the FDA is ending the regulatory paradox of Red 3 being illegal for use in lipstick, but perfectly legal to feed to children in the form of candy," Dr. Peter Lurie, president of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, said in a statement. "The primary purpose of food dyes is to make candy, drinks, and other processed foods more attractive. When the function is purely aesthetic, why accept any cancer risk?"
In addition to CSPI, numerous other groups and activists including the Center for Food Safety, Environmental Working Group (EWG), and Food & Water Watch (FWW) had petitioned the FDA for the ban.
"We wouldn't be celebrating this historic decision today without the relentless leadership of public health champions like Michael Jacobson and others who took up this fight decades ago on behalf of consumers," EWG president and co-founder Ken Cook said in a statement hailing the ban. "We all owe a debt of gratitude to Michael and the other early leaders who pushed the FDA to remove toxic chemical ingredients from the nation's food supply."
FWW senior food policy analyst Rebecca Wolf said that "this move by the FDA is long overdue, but represents a step in the right direction for consumer safety from harmful, cancer-causing chemicals."
"This is exactly the action we need to see from the FDA," Wolf added. "If the incoming FDA is serious about food safety and system reform, they should build on this win by endorsing scientifically sound policies and regulatory changes that Food & Water Watch has supported for years. These include ending the GRAS loophole that companies use to pollute our food system, removing antibiotics from animal feed, and supporting a ban on harmful chemicals in food."
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WHO Agency Reportedly to List Aspartame as 'Possibly Carcinogenic to Humans'
International Agency for Research on Cancer listings do not say anything about how much of a substance a person must consume to be at risk, but they can be hugely influential.
Jun 29, 2023
A World Health Organization' agency will list the widely used artificial sweetener aspartame as "possibly carcinogenic to humans" July 14, Reuters reported, citing two sources familiar with the situation.
International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) listings do not say anything about how much of a substance a person must consume to be at risk, but they can be hugely influential. The body's 2015 determination that glyphosate was "probably carcinogenic to humans" has helped plaintiffs to win lawsuits and appeals against Bayer claiming that use of its glyphosate-containing herbicides caused their cancer.
"We have to wait until July 14 and see how it determines the assessment and in which group it encompasses it," Rafael Urrialde de Andrés, who sits on the board of directors of the Spanish Society of Nutrition and is a professor at the Faculty of Biological Sciences of the Complutense University of Madrid and the Faculty of Pharmacy of the San Pablo-CEU University, said in a statement. "From then on, the food safety agencies and authorities will have to determine whether to reevaluate, ban it, or maintain authorization and under what conditions."
"CSPI has long recommended that consumers avoid aspartame because of studies showing the sweetener caused cancer in animals."
Aspartame is a popular artificial sweetener used in products from Diet Coke to Mars chewing gum. Around 95% of carbonated drinks and 90% of teas that use artificial sweeteners use aspartame, according to The Washington Post.
It has been deemed safe in more than 90 countries including the U.S., and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has affirmed its safety five different times. However, there have been calls from scientists to reevaluate the chemical based on a series of Italian studies finding it caused tumors in rats, and the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) has aspartame on its list of chemicals to avoid.
"CSPI has long recommended that consumers avoid aspartame because of studies showing the sweetener caused cancer in animals," the group tweeted in response to the Reuters story.
The IARC lists exposures as either possibly carcinogenic, probably carcinogenic, or carcinogenic to humans, with the ranking dependent on the strength and extent of the evidence. Experts point out that the IARC is assessing whether foods or chemicals represent potential hazards.
"This means that the IARC experts do not assess whether, in practice, a substance or exposure presents a cancer risk to people," Kevin McConway, emeritus professor of applied statistics at Open University, explained. "Instead they assess whether it would ever be capable of presenting a risk, under any circumstances, even if the only harmful circumstances are really, really unlikely to occur."
Because of this, the body has been criticized for causing unnecessary worry with its listings, such as its warnings that eating red meat and working overnight were probably carcinogenic, and that mobile phones were possibly carcinogenic, The Guardian reported.
That said, another World Health Organization (WHO) body is also scheduled to present a ruling on aspartame July 14 that could provide greater clarity. The Joint WHO and Food and Agriculture Organization's Expert Committee on Food Additives (JECFA), which sets dosage recommendations, is reviewing aspartame from June 27 to July 6, according to The Washington Post. It had previously set the safe level at 40 milligrams per kilogram of body weight per day, McConway said.
"To consume over that limit would require a very large daily consumption of Diet Coke or similar drinks," McConway added. "On 14 July, JECFA may change that risk assessment, or they may not."
Industry groups are already pushing back against a potential change in aspartame's status.
"IARC is not a food safety body and their review of aspartame is not scientifically comprehensive and is based heavily on widely discredited research," Frances Hunt-Wood, the secretary general of the International Sweeteners Association said, as Reuters reported.
Kate Loatman, the executive director of the International Council of Beverages Associations, said that public health bodies should be "deeply concerned" by the "leaked opinion" that she said "could needlessly mislead consumers into consuming more sugar rather than choosing safe no-and low-sugar options."
Even before the Reuters leak, industry and national regulatory bodies were concerned with the news that IARC and JECFA were reviewing aspartame at all, The Washington Post reported.
"There is a broad consensus in the scientific and regulatory community that aspartame is safe. It's a conclusion reached time and time again by food safety agencies around the world," Kevin Keane, American Beverage Association interim chief executive, told the Post last week. "The fact that food safety agencies worldwide, including the FDA, continue to find aspartame safe makes us confident in the safety of our products. And people all over the world should be, too."
The FDA also sent a letter to WHO in August 2022 advising against having two subcommittees consider aspartame.
"In our opinion, a concurrent review of aspartame by both IARC and JECFA would be detrimental to the scientific process and should not occur," Mara Burr, director of the Office of Multilateral Relations in the Department of Health and Human Services' Office of Global Affairs, wrote in the letter.
Burr argued that the review should be conducted by JECFA alone.
"They seem to be worrying in advance of the most authoritative review of the safety of this product," CSPI director Peter Lurie told The Washington Post. "But even if FDA chose to ignore what WHO has to say, the IARC pronouncement would still have a lot of pull in the rest of the world."
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