Calley Means: How Big Pharma and Big Food Keep America Sick | Sage Steele Show | EP 69

The Political and Cultural Turning Point

Means highlights the pivotal moment last August 2024 when Robert F. Kennedy Jr. suspended his own presidential campaign to align with former President Donald Trump, uniting a broad coalition around health reform. This partnership, Means asserts, is one of the most consequential in modern American political history, marking a cultural awakening around systemic issues in healthcare and public health. He emphasizes that this coalition reaches beyond partisan lines, combining farmers, anti-pharma advocates, health activists, and everyday voters united by frustration with the status quo. The administration's approach blends policy actions with a much-needed cultural shift focused on respect for children's health, nutrition, and environment.

Inside the White House: A High-Octane Effort

Means describes the White House as a hive of tireless activity, with staff working long hours—often deep into the night—across agencies to dismantle longstanding bureaucratic inertia. The administration prioritizes the importance of personnel, meticulously assembling a team imbued with competence and aligned vision. He differentiates this administration's ethos from previous ones, noting an unprecedented flurry of executive orders and legislative accomplishments within the administration's first 150 days. The effort is not only focused on immediate reforms but lays the groundwork for a sustained, decade-long transformation of healthcare and related institutions.

A Broken Healthcare System Profiting from Sickness

Central to the discussion is Means' critical assessment of the healthcare system itself, which he characterizes as fundamentally broken and financially incentivized to perpetuate chronic illness rather than promote wellness. He traces the origins of this dynamic back to the post-World War II era, when the medical establishment recognized the profitability of chronic disease management—prompting the creation and marketing of lifelong pharmaceuticals starting with the birth control pill. This economic model has shifted healthcare spending so heavily toward managing chronic conditions—such as diabetes, obesity, and cancer—that around 95% of healthcare dollars are spent on treating sickness rather than preventing it.

Means asserts that the system's overwhelming focus on "band-aid" treatments, particularly expensive medications and procedures, displaces efforts toward root causes like nutrition and lifestyle. He illustrates this with the example that the NIH, despite its significant research funding, prioritizes treatments and drug development over deep inquiry into prevention or environmental and nutritional causes of diseases such as cancer and Alzheimer's. This distorted priority contributes to rising disease rates despite vast expenditures, with nearly no meaningful improvements in incidence or outcomes.

The Food Industry's Role in America's Health Crisis

Another major theme is the food industry's complicity in America's health decline. Means describes a system where ultraprocessed foods dominate diets, subsidized extensively by government programs like SNAP (the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) and entrenched in schools. These foods are laden with sugar, preservatives, artificial dyes, and chemicals deemed safe under outdated or loophole-ridden regulatory frameworks. He notes that the U.S. food supply contains approximately 10,000 additives, compared to around 300 in Europe, underscoring the peculiar permissiveness of domestic regulation.

The podcast reveals the aggressive lobbying power of the food industry, especially against reforms aimed at improving childhood nutrition. For example, attempts to restrict sugary soda purchase with federal benefits encountered opposition framed as racist by organizations like the NAACP—organizations which, according to Means, receive funding from pharmaceutical and food industries and sometimes engage in contradictory lobbying efforts. This tension exposes a cynical prioritization of corporate profits over public health, where raising funding for healthier school lunches is resisted even as billions are spent on drugs to treat diet-related diseases.

Means also touches on the cultural weaponization of certain narratives, such as hunger advocacy being co-opted by large food companies to argue against reforming school meals to healthier options, framing nutrition improvements as elitist or racist. Contrastingly, government spending incentivizes sugar-sweetened beverages for low-income families through SNAP, which drives metabolic diseases disproportionately affecting disadvantaged communities. The interplay of such lobbying creates a feedback loop that sustains unhealthy food habits and entrenched economic disincentives to change.

Challenging the Medical Establishment and Rebuilding Trust

Means shares a profound critique of the medical establishment's resistance to embracing nutrition and lifestyle as central pillars of health. He recounts stories of patients facing belittlement for questioning pharmaceutical prescriptions or seeking "natural" approaches. He observes that many doctors are trained to compartmentalize diseases and treat symptoms in isolation, ignoring metabolic interconnectedness. The entrenched incentives mean doctors rarely learn or emphasize prevention or root-cause interventions, perpetuating a sick care system rather than wellness care.

Moreover, Means discusses the eroding trust in healthcare spurred by events like the COVID-19 pandemic and controversial public health directives. Restoring trust requires transparency, cultural transformation within scientific institutions, and empowering patients to ask informed questions and pursue functional or precision medicine approaches. He stresses that chronic disease management often leaves patients "on their own" and calls for clear government messages encouraging second opinions and greater patient empowerment.

Promising Policy Wins and the Path Forward

Despite the daunting challenges, Means expresses strong optimism fueled by recent policy victories and grassroots momentum. Reform of SNAP to exclude soda purchases in 20 states, state-level bans on neurotoxic food dyes, and new federal efforts to overhaul food labeling and chemical safety represent unprecedented advances. He highlights collaboration between the White House, farmers, and other stakeholders aimed at making nutritious food accessible and redefining dietary guidelines to emphasize real food such as meat, vegetables, and low-sugar fruits.

The administration's revival of initiatives like the Presidential Fitness Test and a commission on sports and nutrition seeks to rekindle cultural values of health, competitiveness, and wholesome eating in schools. Means argues a cultural awakening among voters, especially women and young independents, is a key lever to overcome entrenched corporate lobbying. This movement, embodied by the Maha coalition led by Trump and Kennedy, possesses the voter enthusiasm necessary to sustain reform efforts through election cycles and deepen transformational change.

Personal Reflection and the Human Dimension

Means also shares intimate reflections on his family's experience, including the loss of his mother to pancreatic cancer despite access to premier healthcare, illustrating the limits of current medical models. This personal loss catalyzed his deeper commitment to reforming the system and emphasizing root causes. He recounts poignant final moments with his mother and the gratitude and motivation drawn from her legacy.

He underscores the importance of simple habits—reducing ultraprocessed food at home and school, encouraging regular exercise, and empowering parents and patients with information—to begin reversing the health crisis at scale. Means acknowledges that solutions will not be quick or easy but are achievable through persistent cultural and policy change supported by a new generation of informed voters.