President Donald Trump said [on April 30, 2026] he’s nominating Fox News Channel contributor and radiologist Dr. Nicole Saphier for surgeon general after Casey Means’ path forward stalled in the Senate over questions about her experience and her stance on vaccines.
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In nominating Means last May, Trump sought to hire a close ally of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the health secretary, as the nation’s doctor.
The 38-year-old Means, a Stanford-educated physician whose disillusionment with the health care system led to her career as an author and entrepreneur, promotes ideas popular with the MAHA movement, including that Americans are overmedicalized and that diet and lifestyle changes should be at the center of efforts to end widespread chronic disease.
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Means faced scrutiny for her lack of experience and potential conflicts. On top of those concerns, senators grilled her late last month about Kennedy’s wide-ranging pullback of vaccine recommendations — leading to some contentious moments as Means toed the line between support for vaccines and calling them a decision best made by patients and their doctors.
