Top red flags

Top red flags

• Uses inflammatory rhetoric about contraception, calling birth control pills a “disrespect for life.”
• Promotes the tenets of “blame-and-shame fertility.” 
• Does not have an active medical license, even though “keeping professional licensure and certifications up-to-date is mandatory” for the USPHS Commissioned Corps.

Statements

Statements

• On a podcast, Means downplayed the importance of patient privacy laws like the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), claiming they keep people ignorant about their health.
• Means regularly spreads misinformation and uses stigmatizing language about contraception, assisted reproduction, and fertility, including:
  • Claimed that the birth control pill “shuts down” a woman’s “life-giving nature” and reflects society’s “disrespect for life.”
  • Claimed that hormonal birth control has “horrifying health risks” and speculated that increased breast cancer rates in young people are linked to the use of hormonal birth control.
    • In reality, a study published by the New England Journal of Medicine and reaffirmed by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists in 2024 noted that “[t]he small increased risk of breast cancer identified in this study needs to be interpreted in the context of the benefits of hormonal contraceptive use. The non-contraceptive benefits of hormonal contraception are well-established and include decreased risk of ovarian, endometrial, and colon cancer. Because of protection against these cancers, overall cancer risk may be slightly lower in hormonal contraceptive users compared with nonusers, even with the small increased breast cancer risk observed in this study.”
  • Claimed that the cause of infertility in people with Polycystic Ovary Syndrome (PCOS) boils down to their diet and is “reversible” if they change 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, saying “assisted reproductive technology is skyrocketing clinics all over the world.”
  • Claimed Americans “use birth control pills like candy in women to try to control the cycles of women. We are obsessed with stomping on the life-giving rhythm of nature.” She also encouraged readers to “stop overusing birth control pills en masse for illogical reasons [].” 
• Means encouraged people to rely on intuition instead of blindly trusting “science,” which she calls “a weird new mind-control term.”
• Means has expressed skepticism over vaccines, claiming that the current vaccine schedule is “causing health declines in vulnerable children.”
  • 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.

Publications

Publications

• In her book “Good Energy,” which Means wrote with her brother Calley (a special government employee and top adviser to HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.), she promotes the tenets of “blame-and-shame fertility.” Means’ writing 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:
  • Means 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 mischaracterizing what fertility health care looks like (i.e., hormone tests, treatment of underlying conditions like PCOS, endometriosis, or thyroid dysfunction, and individualized care) and implying 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 co-founded her wellness company “Levels” with Sam Corcos, who went on to work for the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) under the leadership of Elon Musk, who is staunchly anti-abortion.