RFK Jr. names 8 new members to influential preventive medicine task force
The USPSTF sets insurance coverage from preventive services, like colonoscopies.
Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. recently appointed eight new members to a 16-person federal task force tasked with delivering scientifically independent, evidence-based recommendations on various preventive medicine services for Americans. The US Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) formulates recommendations that not only guide individuals but also determine access to care.
The panel employs a rigorous, transparent framework for evidence evaluation and assigns graded recommendations on an A to D scale. Insurance providers are mandated to cover preventive services receiving an A or B grade at no cost. Kennedy has been delaying the USPSTF for over a year, canceling meetings and declining to appoint new members as terms ended and existing members departed.
In May, he also dismissed two leaders, sparking backlash and heightening concerns that he would undermine the panel's nonpartisan, independent status by inflating it with unqualified, ideologically-aligned allies—a move he had previously employed on an influence vaccine advisory committee at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
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