Bonus Sample: A Master Class in Wellness Propaganda
Calley Means is one of RFK Jr’s top advisors. Alongside Tucker Carlson, Means has claimed responsibility for shepherding Kennedy into Trump’s camp. Does this former business school graduate Heritage Foundation intern and business school graduate really care about the nation’s health? Derek listens to a recent interview with Politico and finds the deregulatory ethos that underlies all of Project 2025 is alive and well in MAHA.
Show Notes
Full interview with Calley Means | POLITICO Health Care Summit 2025
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I've covered Cali Means a bunch on this podcast, but here's a quick refresher.
He's a former food and pharma lobbyist who cut his teeth as a Heritage Foundation intern.
At some point in 2021, he had an awakening along with his sister, Casey Means, who is the current Surgeon General nominee.
Together, they wrote a best-selling book, Good Energy.
And that book pins most diseases on metabolic disease, despite the fact that neither have any endocrinology training.
Callie has no medical training whatsoever.
The book did help catapult them to fame, and they've become an integral part of Maha.
Kelly now serves as one of RFK Jr.'s top advisors, and what I'm going to be clipping from today is a 35-minute interview he did with journalist Dasha Burns at Political's 2025 Healthcare Summit.
Kelly performs, as the title of this bonus episode states, a masterclass in maha propaganda.
I'm Derek Barris, and you are listening to a Conspirituality bonus episode.
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And before I get into the interview, I want to flag one of the recent internal battles happening over at Maha.
Politico also recently broke news that Cali Means threatened the wellness company for spreading misinformation about his own company, TruMed.
Quick review again.
TruMed lets consumers use FSA and HSA, that's Flexible Savings Account and Health Savings Account, money to buy a wide range of untested wellness products, including supplements, ice baths, red light therapy devices.
Callie regularly says he found a loophole in that system, though the IRS disagrees when they sent out a letter last year warning people not to purchase things like supplements from these companies.
TruMed calls the products on its site TruHealthcare, yet most have never undergone the rigors of clinical trials to prove the health claims posted on the websites of the companies that he's partnered with.
The wellness company was founded by Foster Colson, who is an heir to a Canadian aviation and logging fortune.
The company features prominent anti-vaxxers on its medical board like Peter McCullough, Harvey Reich, and Drew Pinsky.
And their suite of products include a COVID-19 vaccine detox, as well as an emergency medical kit that includes things like antibiotics and ivermectin.
Both companies are competitors.
And they use telehealth to link consumers with doctors, who then write scripts or, in TruMed's case, letters of recommendation so that people can purchase products on their sites.
They also both market their products by criticizing a medical system that they claim isn't rigorous or honest with the evidence.
Which brings us to this story.
The wellness company's CEO, Peter Gilliloy, accused Callie Means of abusing his position at HHS and violating the law prohibiting conflicts of interest in government services.
Callie told Politico that the wellness company shared provably false information with Laura Loomer.
Politico also got a recording of a call between the wellness company and Means, and this is what Callie says.
If one more thing happens, I'm going to go to Jay Bhattacharya and Bobby and tell them that you and your cadre of Peter McCullough and Kelly Victory are spreading lies and trying to fuck with him and hurt his administration.
Yeah, it kind of sounds like the hall pass monitor is threatening the kid who he doesn't like in the hall, but let's leave that part of this aside.
The actual contention is that Laura Loomer tweeted that TruMed might be committing tax fraud because They are apparently auto-generating those letters of recommendation for their clients instead of having them speak to actual doctors.
I have no way of confirming this claim, but I can do some math.
Wellness activists rightfully criticize our healthcare system because doctors only spend, on average, 15 minutes with their patients.
Spending even less time with patients via telehealth, I would say, isn't a solution.
Which gives the possibility of auto-generation some possible merit.
Let's take TruMed at its word.
They claim they have 320,000 happy customers on the homepage of their website.
If Cali is offering at least a comparable service to those 15-minute consultations that evidence-based doctors offer, that means 80,000 hours of telehealth consultations would have been required.
That's 3,333 days or 9.1 years worth of doctor time.
Yet, TruMed launched in September of 2023.
So, either TruMed employs dozens of doctors who have solely devoted their careers to these calls.
Or, at best, those happy customers aren't getting anywhere near the supposed lackluster service that American doctors provide to their patients on average.
That's a little bit of context around who Cali Means is and how he operates, but you're going to hear it for yourself in this interview.
Let's get into it.
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