Photo: Courtesy of Calley Means
Health entrepreneur Calley Means is an ex-consultant to food and drug interests and close confidant of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who's poised to help shape a prospective second Trump administration's health care agenda.
- He laid out the vision for what's become known as the Make America Healthy Again movement in an interview with Axios. The remarks have been edited for length and clarity.
How did your relationship with RFK Jr. start and how did you get involved with the MAHA movement?
After my mom's preventable death from a chronic disease in 2021, my sister, Dr. Casey Means, and I affirmed our lives' mission to advocate and work to reverse the chronic disease crisis. We both started companies, Levels Health for her, and TrueMed for me, which enables [pre-tax FSA and HSA] spending on food and exercise.
- We've been engaged across the political aisle ... One of those has been Bobby Kennedy, who I was connected with after a Tucker Carlson appearance, and then the Trump campaign I was connected with by a leader in independent media about a year ago. Those are two entities that were very interested in this chronic disease messaging.
How did your previous work in the D.C. world help inform your views?
I worked for lobbying and public affairs firms whose clients included the American Beverage Association and PhRMA. (Means' LinkedIn states he worked for Mercury and Edelman).
- Saw this dynamic that we have a food system that profits from cheap, addictive food that's making us sick, and then a pharmaceutical and health care industry that profits from interventions once people get sick with chronic disease.
What exactly is your role in MAHA?
Hours after the first assassination attempt on President Trump, I called Bobby Kennedy, who I had been working with, and mentioned to him that I have also been sharing ideas with the Trump campaign, who deeply cares about the issue of reversing chronic disease, and brought the idea up of calling President Trump and talking about unity, which was also in his mind.
- And I was able to facilitate that. From my small vantage point, seeing into their discussions, they bonded over the legacy issue of reversing chronic disease, and questions over why kids in America are getting so sick.
- Those conversations led to the endorsement [of Trump by RFK Jr.], and have led to these ideas of why Americans are getting so sick being at the top of the national discussion.
- There's a loose coalition of people working with Bobby Kennedy and the Trump campaign to prepare policies and ideas and personnel that reflect what President Trump has been saying on the campaign trail.
What might MAHA look like in a second Trump administration?
What I think MAHA does is tap into the corruption of our health care systems, which is really central to what President Trump has been talking about on the campaign trail.
- So number one part of Make America Healthy Again is just making sure Americans have correct information about why we're getting so sick, and passing executive orders, working with Congress, to just get corruption out of these agencies.
- As an example, 75% of the FDA drug approval department is funded by pharma. That makes no sense. That's a bad incentive.
- Step two, as President Trump has talked about, and is in the Republican platform, it's this idea of benefit flexibility, of letting Americans make their own decision with their own health care dollars.
Does this mean you're already drafting executive orders for Trump?
- We're engaging with the transition team to prepare policies that are consistent with what President Trump has been saying on the campaign trail, for his consideration, consistent with those two principles.
Would you want a formal role in a second Trump administration?
There's been no discussion of that, and that's not where my head's at, at all.
- There is a generational opportunity to change health care incentives, to no longer profit from a child in America being sick, and we're focused on personnel and policy ideas for President Trump's consideration after the election.
How would it practically work to get rid of the user fee program that partially funds the FDA? Because that would require Congress to fully fund the agency.
If we're able to send $200 billion at a moment's notice to Ukraine, Congress can fund the FDA $3 billion, to ensure that our agency that's supposed to regulate the pharmaceutical industry isn't co-opted and bribed by the industry it's supposed to regulate.
