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Associated Press
3 days ago
- Health
- Associated Press
Takeaways from AP's report on financial interests of RFK Jr. adviser who runs wellness platform
ASSOCIATED PRESS (AP) — Calley Means has built a following by railing against the U.S. health system, often hammering on alleged financial conflicts within the medical establishment. Means, a top aide to Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., was hired as a White House adviser in March. He has used that position to accuse physician groups, federal agencies and government scientists of financial interests that bias their work. Means, however, has his own stake in the sprawling health system. He's the co-founder of an online platform that offers dietary supplements, herbal remedies, exercise equipment, light therapy lamps and other wellness products. The Associated Press found that Means' heated rhetoric against the medical mainstream dovetails with the interests of his company TrueMed, which features vendors who are prominent supporters of Kennedy's 'Make America Healthy Again' movement. Because of his status as a temporary government employee, Means is exempt from publicly disclosing his financial details. The AP reviewed more than two dozen interviews, speeches, articles and podcast appearances by Means both before and after he joined the government. Here are some takeaways from the AP's reporting: Attacking prescription drugs, promoting wellness alternatives Means' company, Truemed, helps users take tax-free money out of their health savings accounts, or HSAs, to spend on things that wouldn't normally qualify as medical expenses, such as meal delivery services and homeopathic products — remedies based on a centuries-old, debunked theory of medicine. As a top messenger for the administration, Means has been promoting a new government report that calls for scaling back prescription drugs for depression, weight loss and other conditions. By criticizing the use of drugs and other rigorously tested products, health experts say Means is furthering the interests of his company, which offers alternatives to traditional medicine. 'It reeks of hypocrisy,' said Dr. Reshma Ramachandran, a health researcher at Yale University. 'In effect, he is representing another industry that is touting nonregulated products and using his platform within the government to financially benefit himself.' In a written statement, Means said his government work has not dealt with matters affecting Truemed and has focused on issues like reforming nutrition programs and pressuring companies to phase out food dyes. 'Pursuing these large-scale MAHA goals to make America healthy has been the sole focus in my government work,' Means said. Undisclosed interests The full extent of Means' potential financial conflicts are unclear because of his status as a special government employee. Unlike presidential appointees and other senior officials, special government employees do not have to leave companies or sell investments that could be impacted by their work. Also, their financial disclosure forms are shielded from public release. 'It's a big problem,' says Richard Painter, former White House ethics lawyer under George W. Bush. 'I think it's a loophole.' Plugging products and business associates While promoting the administration's accomplishments, Means has not shied away from plugging his own brand or those of his business partners. When asked to offer health advice to listeners of a sports podcast, Outkick The Show, in April, Means suggested they read his book 'Good Energy,' which he co-authored with his sister, Dr. Casey Means. He also recommended blood tests sold by Function Health, which provides subscription-based testing for $500 annually. The company was cofounded by Dr. Mark Hyman, a friend of Kennedy and an investor in Truemed, which also offers Hyman's supplements through its platform. Like dietary supplements, the tests marketed by Function Health are not clinically approved by the Food and Drug Administration. 'It ends up favoring these products and services that rest on flimsy grounds, at the expense of products that have actually survived a rigorous FDA approval process,' said Dr. Peter Lurie, a former FDA official who is now president of the Center for Science in the Public Interest. Steering medical dollars into health savings accounts Means says he has not worked on issues impacting HSAs since joining the federal government. Federal ethics laws forbid government employees from taking part in decisions that could impact their financial situation. But before joining government, Means said the mission of his company 'is to steer medical dollars into flexible spending.' 'I want to get that $4.5 trillion of Medicare, Medicaid, everything into a flexible account,' he told fitness celebrity Jillian Michaels, on her podcast last year. Truemed collects fees when users and partnering companies use its platform. Means also founded a lobbying group, made up of MAHA entrepreneurs and TrueMed vendors, that listed expanding HSAs as a goal on its website. Means said in a statement that the group focused only on broad topics like 'health care incentives and patient choice — but did not lobby for specific bills.' Benefits of HSAs questioned Expanding HSAs has been part of the Republican health platform for more than 20 years. The tax-free accounts were created in 2003 to encourage Americans in high-deductible plans to be judicious with their health dollars. But HSAs have not brought down spending, economists say. They are disproportionately used by the wealthiest Americans, who have more income to fund them and bigger incentives to lower their tax rate. Americans who earn more than $1 million annually are the group most likely to make regular HSA contributions, according to an analysis by the nonprofit Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Most Americans with HSAs have balances less than $500. HSA expansions in Trump's 'One Big Beautiful Bill' are projected to cost the federal government $180 billion over the next 10 years. 'These are really just tax breaks in the guise of health policy that overwhelmingly benefit people with high incomes,' said Gideon Lukens, a former White House budget official during the Obama and Trump administrations. ___ The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute's Science and Educational Media Group and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
The Independent
3 days ago
- Health
- The Independent
Takeaways from AP's report on financial interests of RFK Jr. adviser who runs wellness platform
Calley Means has built a following by railing against the U.S. health system, often hammering on alleged financial conflicts within the medical establishment. Means, a top aide to Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., was hired as a White House adviser in March. He has used that position to accuse physician groups, federal agencies and government scientists of financial interests that bias their work. Means, however, has his own stake in the sprawling health system. He's the co-founder of an online platform that offers dietary supplements, herbal remedies, exercise equipment, light therapy lamps and other wellness products. The Associated Press found that Means' heated rhetoric against the medical mainstream dovetails with the interests of his company TrueMed, which features vendors who are prominent supporters of Kennedy's 'Make America Healthy Again' movement. Because of his status as a temporary government employee, Means is exempt from publicly disclosing his financial details. The AP reviewed more than two dozen interviews, speeches, articles and podcast appearances by Means both before and after he joined the government. Here are some takeaways from the AP's reporting: Attacking prescription drugs, promoting wellness alternatives Means' company, Truemed, helps users take tax-free money out of their health savings accounts, or HSAs, to spend on things that wouldn't normally qualify as medical expenses, such as meal delivery services and homeopathic products — remedies based on a centuries-old, debunked theory of medicine. As a top messenger for the administration, Means has been promoting a new government report that calls for scaling back prescription drugs for depression, weight loss and other conditions. By criticizing the use of drugs and other rigorously tested products, health experts say Means is furthering the interests of his company, which offers alternatives to traditional medicine. 'It reeks of hypocrisy,' said Dr. Reshma Ramachandran, a health researcher at Yale University. 'In effect, he is representing another industry that is touting nonregulated products and using his platform within the government to financially benefit himself.' In a written statement, Means said his government work has not dealt with matters affecting Truemed and has focused on issues like reforming nutrition programs and pressuring companies to phase out food dyes. 'Pursuing these large-scale MAHA goals to make America healthy has been the sole focus in my government work,' Means said. Undisclosed interests The full extent of Means' potential financial conflicts are unclear because of his status as a special government employee. Unlike presidential appointees and other senior officials, special government employees do not have to leave companies or sell investments that could be impacted by their work. Also, their financial disclosure forms are shielded from public release. 'It's a big problem,' says Richard Painter, former White House ethics lawyer under George W. Bush. 'I think it's a loophole." Plugging products and business associates While promoting the administration's accomplishments, Means has not shied away from plugging his own brand or those of his business partners. When asked to offer health advice to listeners of a sports podcast, Outkick The Show, in April, Means suggested they read his book "Good Energy,' which he co-authored with his sister, Dr. Casey Means. He also recommended blood tests sold by Function Health, which provides subscription-based testing for $500 annually. The company was cofounded by Dr. Mark Hyman, a friend of Kennedy and an investor in Truemed, which also offers Hyman's supplements through its platform. Like dietary supplements, the tests marketed by Function Health are not clinically approved by the Food and Drug Administration. 'It ends up favoring these products and services that rest on flimsy grounds, at the expense of products that have actually survived a rigorous FDA approval process,' said Dr. Peter Lurie, a former FDA official who is now president of the Center for Science in the Public Interest. Steering medical dollars into health savings accounts Means says he has not worked on issues impacting HSAs since joining the federal government. Federal ethics laws forbid government employees from taking part in decisions that could impact their financial situation. But before joining government, Means said the mission of his company 'is to steer medical dollars into flexible spending.' 'I want to get that $4.5 trillion of Medicare, Medicaid, everything into a flexible account,' he told fitness celebrity Jillian Michaels, on her podcast last year. Truemed collects fees when users and partnering companies use its platform. Means also founded a lobbying group, made up of MAHA entrepreneurs and TrueMed vendors, that listed expanding HSAs as a goal on its website. Means said in a statement that the group focused only on broad topics like 'health care incentives and patient choice — but did not lobby for specific bills.' Benefits of HSAs questioned Expanding HSAs has been part of the Republican health platform for more than 20 years. The tax-free accounts were created in 2003 to encourage Americans in high-deductible plans to be judicious with their health dollars. But HSAs have not brought down spending, economists say. They are disproportionately used by the wealthiest Americans, who have more income to fund them and bigger incentives to lower their tax rate. Americans who earn more than $1 million annually are the group most likely to make regular HSA contributions, according to an analysis by the nonprofit Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Most Americans with HSAs have balances less than $500. HSA expansions in Trump's 'One Big Beautiful Bill' are projected to cost the federal government $180 billion over the next 10 years. 'These are really just tax breaks in the guise of health policy that overwhelmingly benefit people with high incomes,' said Gideon Lukens, a former White House budget official during the Obama and Trump administrations. ___
Daily Mail
13-05-2025
- Health
- Daily Mail
MAHA civil war erupts as wellness CEO makes bombshell accusation against top RFK Jr. adviser
A civil war is threatening to tear apart the 'Make America Healthy Again' movement as a top RFK Jr advisor and the CEO of a supplement company beloved by conservatives have levelled bombshell allegations against each other. The rift was opened in recent weeks as Peter Gillooly, the CEO of The Wellness Company, and Calley Means, a 'special advisor' to HHS chief Kennedy, accused each other of wrongdoing. Gillooly launched an official complaint on Saturday accusing Means of abusing his position in RFK Jr's inner circle to threaten him with retribution directly from Kennedy and National Institutes of Health Director Jay Bhattacharya. According to the complaint, obtained by Politico, Means called Gillooly on Saturday morning accusing him of leaking information to far-right activist Laura Loomer, telling him: 'If one more thing happens, I'm going to go to Jay Bhattacharya and Bobby.' He threatened to 'tell him that you and your cadre... are spreading lies and trying to f*** with him and hurt his administration', according to a transcript in the reported complaint. The crux of the fallout appears to be an X post from Loomer on Friday accusing Means' company TrueMed with tax fraud. The company provides patients with doctor's letters that allow them to purchase health products through their insurance, which Loomer alleged are auto-generated without any proper medical reviews. Gillooly denied ever contacting Loomer, but now says that Means' threat to bring Kennedy and Bhattacharya into the fight is an abuse of his position and violates federal law on conflicts of interest. The allegations against Means come as he has faced backlash from figures such as Loomer of being anti-Trump, despite his position as a close advisor to RFK Jr. His sister Casey Means was also recently nominated to be the next Surgeon General by Trump, a move that sparked controversy as she has often made claims about holistic health benefits on shows such as The Joe Rogan Experience and the Tucker Carlson Show. As a special advisor to Kennedy in the HHS, Calley Means has been allowed to maintain his business ties to the healthcare industry by serving in a temporary capacity. The potential conflicts of interest between his government role and business came under the spotlight following Loomer's post, which alleged that TrueMed has given patients doctor's notes that are 'not actually reviewed by a doctor.' Loomer claimed that sources told her TrueMed's letters are 'allegedly auto-generated instantaneously and auto-signed', which she said would be tantamount to tax fraud. 'This could create a massive scandal for the Trump admin. We don't want the Trump admin being accused of having advisors involved in any tax scandals,' Loomer added. Gillooly denied ever having had contact with Loomer, and the firebrand activist told Politico that she was never sent any information about Means, adding that she 'looks stuff up on my own.' In his call to Gillooly that was cited in the complaint, Means threatened to 'sue the s*** out of you' and 'escalate this if it continues.' The complaint was filed Saturday to the Office of Special Counsel, HHS Office of Civil Rights, HHS Office of Inspector General and the Federal Trade Commission. In a statement to Politico following the complaint's filing, Means clarified that he berated Gillooly and the Wellness Company on the call because he received information the company 'was actively spreading provably false information about TrueMed.' 'I called the CEO of the Wellness Company and threatened legal action if he continued to spread this provably false information. I noted I would prefer they stop spreading provably untrue information before I was forced to take legal action,' he said. Means' hostile response to Gillooly threatens to cause a major rift in the MAHA movement, with the RFK Jr insider now squaring off with The Wellness Company - whose leading figures are often praised in conservative media spaces. On Monday, TrueMed reportedly sent a cease and desist letter to Gillooly and The Wellness Company accusing them of leaking false information to Loomer with the intention of embarrassing their rival. The Wellness Company's founder Foster Coulson also denied the claims, saying he has 'never spoken to Laura Loomer in my life.' He doubled down on Gillooly's claims in his response, saying: 'Using the government to essentially weaponize them against a private company is extremely concerning and is a tremendous threat.' Gillooly said in his lawsuit that Means 'clearly states that if I do not accept his accusation and comply — which I am not guilty of in the first place — he will sue myself and my business.' 'Additionally, Means threatens to blackmail my private corporation with HHS executive leadership if we do not comply with his demands, and extort my business into transacting with Truemed.' 'I think there needs to be a thorough investigation because this sort of behavior has no place in the federal government,' Gillooly concluded to Politico.
Fox News
25-04-2025
- Health
- Fox News
An Alternative Look At U.S. Autism Diagnoses With Calley Means
Many Americans have voiced the belief that America's rising number of autism diagnoses is due to greater awareness of the disorder, and how vast the autism spectrum is. Though this might be true, could the rising number in these diagnoses also be connected to America's high rates of cancer, diabetes, heart disease, or obesity? TrueMed co-founder Calley Means joins to discuss why HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and President Trump are exploring the idea that the above trends could all be related in a 'larger chronic disease epidemic'. He also shares what factors he believes might contribute to the rising rates of autism in the U.S., and the challenges the government faces in accessing data that could reveal links between certain medications or lifestyle behaviors and medical diagnoses. Follow Martha on X: @MarthaMacCallum Learn more about your ad choices. Visit
Fox News
05-04-2025
- Health
- Fox News
'FOOD BABE' VANI HARI: Don't boo the MAHA movement. Our health and safety are bigger than bureaucrats' egos
I couldn't believe my ears when I heard my friend and colleague Calley Means, co-founder of TrueMed and an adviser to Health and Human Services Secretary Robert Kennedy, being booed, laughed at and shouted down at the Politico Health Care Summit this week. Apparently, that room full of health care lobbyists and partisan critics didn't want to hear the truth: American health policy in its current form is an absolute and utter failure. The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the largest health bureaucracy in the world, needs an overhaul and it needs to happen fast. The backlash Calley encountered Wednesday came just 24 hours after HHS began laying off 10,000 federal employees — including entrenched officials from agencies like the FDA, NIH, and CMS, who have presided over a stunning collapse in American health. Shortly after Secretary Kennedy's announcement of the restructuring, the former FDA Commissioner Dr. Robert Califf went on his LinkedIn page and stated "The FDA as we've known it is finished." Thank goodness it's finished. Decades of ineffectiveness have allowed our food and chemical corporations to inundate our food system with novel chemicals without third-party oversight or necessary safety studies. Decades of outdated regulatory actions have let American companies poison us with ingredients they don't use in other countries -- like artificial food dyes that are linked to hyperactivity in children and cancer in animal studies. Decades of poor nutritional standards have allowed infant formulas with the first ingredient -- "corn syrup solids" -- a form of added refined sugar -- to be given to newborn babies. If our health authorities worked, we wouldn't be the sickest developed country on Earth. We wouldn't have exploding rates of obesity, infertility, and depression. The facts speak louder than the boos. We need a total overhaul in how our regulatory bodies operate. We need to replace old thinking. We need new personnel who aren't riddled with conflicts of interest. We need gold-star science that will get to the root cause of why we are in this predicament and how to solve it. Our government has miserably failed to protect human health and there are countless examples of that -- but now with President Donald Trump and Secretary Kennedy's bold vision to reverse chronic disease, we have a turning point in history that we've never had before. What Calley said at the summit wasn't complicated: the people who helped create this crisis shouldn't be the ones running the response. And yet, when he pointed out that America has "the sickest children in the developed world" — and that laughing off reform in the face of that reality is disgraceful — the room turned hostile. He argued that Secretary Kennedy is doing exactly what voters — particularly MAHA moms like me — asked for: removing entrenched bureaucrats who labeled independent experts as quacks, punished dissent, and brushed aside soaring chronic disease rates-- ignoring the fact that food is medicine. To do otherwise, as Calley put it, is "to tell the MAHA moms that their votes and voices are not legitimate." People voted for change. Not for minor tweaks — for structural disruption. And that's why the MAHA moms are done being laughed at. I understand the outrage. But I also understand what's at stake. If our health authorities worked, we wouldn't be the sickest developed country on Earth. We wouldn't have exploding rates of obesity, infertility, and depression. The facts speak louder than the boos. And let's be clear: this isn't the first time reform has made the elite uncomfortable. Calley is a warrior like I've never seen before. He is doing what real reformers always do — facing down institutions that protect themselves at all costs. And he has an army of MAHA moms behind him. I'm one of them. As a longtime food activist and founder of the Food Babe movement, I've spent over a decade challenging the very same health establishment now being reformed. I've spoken directly with the MAHA moms in and and outside the White House driving this effort — women who've watched their kids suffer from chronic illness, only to be gaslit by the very agencies meant to protect them. These aren't fringe voices. They're citizens demanding accountability, transparency, and a return to common sense in public health. I'm proud to stand with them. I've traveled all over the country with Calley, in a grassroots effort to fix what the food industry has done to us -- testifying in various states that are looking to reform antiquated policies that allow harmful chemicals in our food and keep Americans sick. This moment isn't about optics. It's about outcomes — whether American children are healthier in five years. Whether families feel seen and served by public health institutions. Whether the government finally begins to prioritize prevention over pharmaceutical profits. Calley should not apologize for prioritizing America's health over bureaucratic egos. He shouldn't back down because insiders are uncomfortable. He is part of a team building a leaner, more transparent and reputable HHS. And if telling that truth gets him booed again, I have a feeling he'll take the mic every time.
