Top red flags

Top red flags

• Coordinated the “Make Our Children Healthy Again” report, which promotes tenets of blame-and-shame fertility.
• Uses inflammatory rhetoric about assisted reproduction and fertility. 
• Spreads misinformation and sows distrust in proven science and the medical and scientific communities. 

Statements and Policy Actions

Statements and Policy Actions 

• Means regularly spreads misinformation and uses stigmatizing language about assisted reproduction and fertility, including:
  • Claimed that the cause of infertility in people with polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) boils down to their diet and is best “reversed” by changing what they eat.
  • Insinuated that doctors are financially motivated to encourage IVF and other forms of assisted reproductive technology instead of working to solve underlying causes of infertility, calling assisted reproductive technology an economic “gold mine” for clinics.
• Means has used his platform to sow distrust in the medical and scientific communities,
  • While speaking at a Heritage Foundation event, he said, “we just have to realize that bad people have co-opted our science”. 
  • He also said it takes “moral courage” to go against entities like the National Institutes of Health (NIH), which is part of HHS. 
• While serving as a Special Government Employee (SGE), Means helped coordinatethe “Make Our Children Healthy Again” report which promotes blame-and-shame fertility, an anti-reproductive freedom doctrine.
  • During his time as an SGE, lawmakers raised concerns over Means’ potential conflicts of interest in two letters. The potential conflicts of interest revolved around Means’ company TrueMed, which helps customers use money from their flexible savings accounts to pay for items that would not usually qualify for HSA/FSA expenditures. TrueMed’s business model was called “legally dubious” by a consumer rights advocacy group.   
• Means has expressed skepticism over vaccines, stating “I have severe concerns with pediatricians, the vaccine schedule, [and] the pharmaceutical industrial complex.”
  • In reality,  overwhelming scientific evidence concludes that vaccines are safe and effective. Anti-vaccine rhetoric, like anti-abortion rhetoric, erodes trust in proven science and the patient-provider relationship. Vaccines have been increasingly politicized under the leadership of HHS Secretary RFK, Jr., often using anti-rights justifications. For example, NIH recently reinstated a ban on the use of fetal tissue in vaccine development research, an anti-abortion advocate was appointed to the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), and politicized changes to the recommended vaccine schedule made it harder for pregnant people to access the Covid vaccine.
• Means compared the anti-abortion movement with the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) movement, referring to both as “life-or-death” issues, praising the anti-abortion movement’s decades-long, “very calculated effort” to overturn Roe v. Wade, and calling for MAHA to employ a similar long-term strategy.

Publications

Publications 

• In the book “Good Energy,” which Means co-wrote with his sister Casey Means (President Trump’s nominee for Surgeon General), they promote tenets of “blame-and-shame fertility.” The book reflects this anti-reproductive freedom doctrine that assumes infertility is the person’s fault—based on their diet, lifestyle, age, etc.—and that using modern assisted reproductive technology, like IVF, is a personal failure:
  • The book claims “[Very] few of the women who elect for these invasive procedures [called assisted reproductive technology] are told by their doctor the root causes of their infertility, or how to reverse them”; harmfully mischaracterizes what fertility health care looks like (i.e., hormone tests, treatment of underlying conditions like PCOS, endometriosis, or thyroid dysfunction, and individualized care) and implies that patients should pursue diet and lifestyle modifications as an alternative to fertility treatment like evidence-based IVF.

Extremist connections

Extremist connections

• Means served as an adviser for HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s 2024 presidential campaign. Kennedy is anti-abortion and has close ties to the anti-science community. Means is credited with brokering the alliance between President Trump and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. 
• Means is a close collaborator of his sister Casey Means (President Trump’s nominee for Surgeon General) who has consistently spread misinformation about contraception and assisted reproduction. 
• Means has ties to the Heritage Foundation, an anti-abortion conservative organization that created Project 2025, where he worked as a research analyst and intern and then later served as a speaker at an event hosted by the organization.