A view of the U.S. Capitol building in Washington, US, November 10, 2024. REUTERS/Hannah McKay

By Ahmed Aboulenein

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The U.S. Senate health committee's planned hearing for President Donald Trump's surgeon general pick Casey Means on Thursday was postponed after the nominee went into labor, according to the panel.

The 37-year-old wellness influencer had been set to appear virtually before the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee because she is 40 weeks pregnant. But the hearing was delayed because she went into labor, a spokesperson for the committee said after the delay was posted on its website.

As the nation's doctor, the surgeon general provides Americans with the best scientific information available on how to improve their health and reduce the risk of illness and injury.

Means had planned to say she has spent 15 years treating thousands of patients in clinics and operating rooms as well as running her own medical practice, according to her written testimony.

She graduated medical school at Stanford University but subsequently dropped out of her surgical residency. Her medical license status is currently listed as "inactive" by the Oregon Medical Board, though it is not expired. Means, on her website, said that her license status is voluntary because she is not actively seeing patients.

She and her brother, Calley, are close allies of Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and vocal proponents of his "Make America Healthy Again" agenda. Calley Means, a former food industry lobbyist, serves as a White House adviser focusing on food policy and the influence of corporations on health.

"Our nation is angry, exhausted, and hurting from preventable disease," Casey Means planned to say, according to a copy of her testimony seen by Reuters.

Means co-founded the health-tech app Levels, which uses data from continuous glucose monitors to inform users on how food affects their health. She holds a financial stake in her brother's company, Truemed, which works with doctors to certify the medical necessity of advanced health technologies and wellness programs, enabling customers to qualify for tax breaks.

Means would resign her position at Levels if confirmed, and divest her stocks in Levels and Truemed, according to her disclosure filing with the Office of Government Ethics.

She has advocated for the consumption of raw milk, repeatedly echoed Kennedy's unscientific claims linking vaccines to autism, and criticized the use of birth control pills.

"Public health leadership must address the modifiable drivers of chronic disease identified in the MAHA Assessment: poor diet, chemical exposure, lack of physical activity and chronic stress, and overmedicalization," she said in her prepared testimony.

Means is Trump's second nominee to the position. He abruptly withdrew his nomination of Janette Nesheiwat in May after she was criticized by far right activist Laura Loomer, who has since also criticized the choice of Means.

Her nomination has also drawn fire from more establishment voices.

Peter Lurie, president of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, called on the Senate to reject her nomination and warned of the potential consequences.

"If confirmed, we expect her to promote falsehoods about vaccines and other essential health topics, which will ultimately harm our health, not improve it," Lurie said.

(Reporting by Ahmed Aboulenein; additional reporting by Nolan McCaskill and Susan Heavey; Editing by Caroline Humer and Bill Berkrot)