ICYMI: Murphy To Surgeon General Nominee: You Lied To The Public About Financial Conflicts Of Interest
Press (Murphy)
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
February 25, 2026
CONTACT
Deni Kamper
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
MURPHY TO SURGEON GENERAL NOMINEE: YOU LIED TO THE PUBLIC ABOUT FINANCIAL CONFLICTS OF INTEREST
Watch The Exchange Here
WASHINGTON - U.S. Senator Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) on Wednesday questioned Dr. Casey Means, a wellness influencer and President Donald Trump’s nominee for U.S. Surgeon General, during her confirmation hearing before the U.S. Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee. Murphy confronted Dr. Means over allegations she exploited the trust placed in her as a medical doctor by promoting treatments and products to more than a million followers across several platforms without disclosing, or outright denying, her financial connections to the companies she was promoting.
Murphy confronted Means over the allegations in the complaint: “As you know, there is a pending complaint regarding your failure to adhere to [FTC disclosure] guidelines that basically makes the contention - and this committee has verified the data that underlies their complaint - that you routinely violated this policy, and that in fact, in the majority of your posts for many of the products you recommend, you did not transparently reveal your financial connection.”
Murphy highlighted an egregious case where Means brazenly lied to her followers about her financial conflicts: “There's a prenatal vitamin called WeNatal. Your filings before this committee show that you started receiving compensation in the spring of 2024. And yet, in September of 2024, you posted a video saying that you had no financial relationship to the company, [you were] ‘just a big fan.’ And then in October, you said, ‘Not sponsored, just love these,’ but in fact, you have documentation before this committee that showed when you said those things, you had a financial relationship. You had already started receiving money from that company, so you weren't telling the truth when you said you were just a fan, you were actually receiving money, correct?”
Listing off additional companies that Means promoted without disclosing her paid partnerships to followers, he continued: “Function Health, which is your lab testing platform - data shows that you disclosed your partnership with them less than a third of the time that you recommended their services online. Genova Diagnostics - you disclosed your sponsorship only two of the nine times that you promoted Genova. Daily Harvest - you disclosed your sponsorship on only three of the 14 posts recommending that product. Zen Basil Seeds - you disclosed your partnership, only two out of the 13 times that you recommended the product… over and over again, you seem to be, at scale, recommending products without telling your followers.”
He slammed Means’ long record of personally profiting off people looking to her for medical advice: “This seems systemic. It seems that in the majority of instances in which you were, as a medical professional, recommending a product, you were hiding the fact that you had a financial partnership. You seem to be in regular willful violation of the FTC rules. That is concerning as someone who agrees with Senator Cassidy that our focus has to be on restoring trust in the medical profession.”
A full transcript of Murphy’s questioning is available below.
MURPHY: Thank you, Mr. Chairman, good morning Dr. Means. Dr Means, are you familiar with FTC policy that requires those who are recommending products online to disclose their financial connection to those companies. In particular, the document from the FTC says this, “If you endorse a product through social media, your endorsement message should make it obvious when you have a relationship with the brand.” Are you familiar with that?
MEANS: Certainly.
MURPHY: So, as you know, there is a pending complaint regarding your failure to adhere to those guidelines that basically makes the contention, and this committee has verified the data that underlies their complaint, that you routinely violated this policy, and that in fact, in the majority of your posts for many of the products you recommend, you did not transparently reveal your financial connection. Let me give you an example.
MEANS: That's false.
MURPHY: Well, let me give you [an example]. So there's a prenatal vitamin called WeNatal. Your filings before this committee show that you started receiving compensation in the spring of 2024. And yet, in September of 2024 you posted a video saying that you had no financial relationship to the company, [you were] “just a big fan”. And then in October, you said, “Not sponsored, just love these” but in fact, you have documentation before this committee that showed when you said those things, you had a financial relationship. You had already started receiving money from that company, so you weren't telling the truth when you said you were just a fan, you were actually receiving money, correct?
MEANS: In any post where I said I am not receiving money, I had not been receiving money at that time,
MURPHY: But you had received partnership fees for this particular prenatal vitamin. In fact, prior to September and October, you had posted partnership links in which you get compensated based upon click throughs correct?
Means: I'm happy to look at whatever documentation you're talking about, but I do not- this is it's incorrect and it's a false representation. And just to be very clear, I've spent the last several months working with the Office of Government Ethics to be fully compliant with this process. I take it very seriously before, during, and after. If I am in office, I will be in full compliance with the Office of Government Ethics. I think, as I've talked about, conflicts of interest are incredibly important to rectify if we're in public service, and I am fully committed to continuing to work with that.
MURPHY: So let me give you some other examples. Function health, which is your lab testing platform, data shows that you disclosed your partnership with them less than a third of the time that you recommended their services online. Genova diagnostics, you disclosed your sponsorship only two of the nine times that you promoted Genova. Daily harvest, you disclosed your sponsorship on only three of the 14 posts recommending that product. Zen basil seeds, you disclosed your partnership, only two out of the 13 times that you recommended the product. This seems systemic. It seems that in the majority of instances in which you were as a medical professional recommending a product, you were hiding the fact that you had a financial partnership. You seem to be in regular willful violation of the FTC rules. That is concerning as someone who agrees with Senator Cassidy that our focus has to be on restoring trust in the medical profession. And yet, over and over again, you seem to be, at scale, recommending products without telling your followers. And you have 200,000 newsletter subscribers. You have almost a million Instagram followers, and in only three out of 14 times, when you were promoting daily harvest, you disclose that you're getting paid by them.
MEANS: It sounds like you have a lot to say about this issue, and I would be very interested to see how your staff looked at this data. I have a strong feeling that the way in which they gather this data is done intentionally, to create these claims that you're making.
MURPHY: I have the backup here. I mean, will you acknowledge that in many instances, when you were promoting these products, you did not disclose that you had a financial relationship?
MEANS: I don't think that's true if and if it has happened, if it inadvertently has happened, I would rectify that immediately. However I would, I would be interested to see how your your staff gathered, and I will conclude by saying-
MURPHY: I’ll send it to all the committee members. I mean, it's pretty incontrovertible evidence.
MEANS: I take conflicts of interest incredibly seriously. I've worked diligently, diligently, diligently with the Office of Government Ethics to make sure that conflicts are addressed thoroughly.
###