\n<\/p>\n
When asked for on-the-record responses to questions provided to her for this story, Means did not reply. (Flint\u2019s perspective was first reported by the LA Times<\/a>.<\/em>)<\/p>\n Casey Means has spent the last year as a burgeoning star of the MAHA movement. She and Calley have appeared on shows hosted by Joe Rogan<\/strong> and Tucker Carlson,<\/strong> the latter of whom told her\u2014after she described reading \u201csacred texts and the Bible and Rumi and [Ayn] Rand\u201d from a young age, and discussing those at the family dinner table\u2014\u201cI honestly think you\u2019re going to change the world.\u201d In this media ecosystem, Means\u2019s life story of renouncing the establishment is a key selling point.<\/p>\n As she explains in Good Energy,<\/em> \u201cFor most of my adult life, I was a vocal advocate for the modern health care system and collected credentials to rise within its ranks.\u201d Among those credentials: president of her Stanford undergraduate class, a standout student at the Stanford School of Medicine, and an acceptee into the competitive surgical residency at OHSU. There, in 2018, on the precipice of a promising and lucrative career as a surgeon, she found the medical-industrial complex so hyperspecialized and profit-driven, as she has said, that she turned in her scalpel to preach a holistic view of health and wellness.<\/p>\n \u201cIn September 2018, on my thirty-first birthday and just months shy of completing my five-year residency, I walked into the chairman\u2019s office at OHSU and quit,\u201d she writes in Good Energy.<\/em> \u201cWith a full wall of awards and honors for my clinical and research performance and with prominent hospital systems pursuing me for mid-six-figure faculty roles, I walked out of the hospital and embarked on a journey to understand the real reasons why people get sick and to figure out how to help patients restore and sustain their health\u201d<\/p>\n In January 2019, according to Oregon business records, she set up a small medical practice in Portland, focusing on metabolic health despite lacking a degree in nutrition science. In her book, she describes a \u201cplant-filled office, which intentionally looked more like a peaceful living room than a clinical space,\u201d where her patients sat in comfortable armchairs and she addressed the \u201croot causes of illness rather than just treating isolated symptoms.\u201d<\/p>\n