The One with the Surgeon General Nominee Grady Means’ Kid
So, like, if you picture this total boomer success story in your mind, like a character from one of those systems novels by DeLillo or Pynchon, you might think of Grady Means. His daughter, Casey Means, is now up for the Surgeon General gig under President Trump. Grady, born in 1946 in L.A., got scholarships to study economics and engineering at Stanford. He was a track star and worked in Silicon Valley at Fairchild Semiconductor and the aerospace industry in SoCal’s Northrop Corporation.
Grady got a lot of help from the fed in Cali, where defense contracts were like the golden goose, until the nineties hit. He rubbed elbows with Nixon and was a big shot at this health agency that eventually became today’s H.H.S. Then he went into consulting, helping Latin American countries sell off their state assets. His firm merged and made bank, selling the consulting bit to I.B.M. for billions. By then, he was in D.C., raising Casey and her bro, Calley.
The Means siblings are all about balancing biz and public service. Casey, thirty-seven, is a Stanford med school grad and co-founder of Levels, a health-tracking company. Her bro, Calley, thirty-nine, is into food and pharma consulting and co-founded Truemed. They wrote a best-seller in 2024, “Good Energy,” pushing the connection between metabolism and health. They’re big in Kennedy’s Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) movement, and they’ve even caught the eye of Tucker Carlson, who thinks Casey is going to change the world.
But wait, there’s more! Casey doesn’t have an active medical license and seems to lack a public health background. But hey, that’s not stopping her from becoming Surgeon General. The Trump Administration has been slashing budgets left and right, like clawing back billions meant for state health depts. and cutting NIH grants. H.H.S. staff has shrunk by over twenty per cent since January. So, not really sure why this matters, but it seems like public health might be in a bit of a pickle.
The Means siblings don’t pull punches when it comes to the health care system, criticizing Big Food and Big Pharma for keeping us sick. They’re not fans of conventional meds either, claiming they do more harm than good. Their book, “Good Energy,” dives deep into MAHA positions, like how most illnesses can be treated with diet and lifestyle changes. They’re all about tracking biomarkers and staying on top of your health with wearables.
“Good Energy” is like a mix of a memoir, anti-establishment rant, and diet guide. Casey and Calley go hard on what foods to avoid and how to structure your meals for optimal metabolism. They trash household cleaners, personal care items, and even perfumes. Oh, and don’t even get them started on seed oils and tap water. Their advice is all about taking control of your health and not relying on traditional medicine.
Casey’s whole thing is about self-audit and self-reliance when it comes to health. She’s a big believer in functional medicine and wearing continuous glucose monitors. But with all the fear-mongering in “Good Energy,” it’s hard to tell if they’re really helping or just adding to the stress. In the end, it feels like the Means siblings are pushing an extreme form of wellness that might not be realistic for everyone.
So, yeah, the Means kids are on a mission to make health care more about personal responsibility and less about the system. Whether that’s a good thing or not, well, who’s to say? But one thing is for sure, their rise to fame has been swift, and their views are definitely turning some heads, for better or for worse.
