Federal panel behind cancer screening recommendations hasn't met in one year
5 hours ago
- #preventive-care
- #healthcare
- #USPSTF
- The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) has not convened in almost a year, raising concerns about its future.
- The task force, created in 1984, reviews scientific research to recommend preventive care covered under the Affordable Care Act (ACA).
- Most private insurers must cover services with an A or B grade from the task force, affecting over 150 million people.
- The panel typically meets three times a year but last convened in March 2025; subsequent meetings were canceled.
- The task force is operating with only 11 members instead of the usual 16, as five members' terms expired.
- Pending draft recommendations include updates to cervical cancer screening and perinatal depression screening and counseling.
- Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has reshaped other federal advisory groups, raising concerns about politicization.
- Kennedy reportedly criticized the task force as 'too woke' and considered removing all its members.
- The task force's work is intended to be science-based and insulated from politics, but politicization threatens its credibility.
- The panel faced backlash in the past, such as over its 'A' rating for PrEP, but the Supreme Court upheld its mandate.
- The task force has 54 recommendations, including mammograms, anxiety screenings for children, and statins for certain patients.
- Dr. Robert Lawrence, the first chair of the task force, worries its work on health disparities could be dismissed as 'woke.'
- Without regular meetings, updates to recommendations could be delayed, potentially harming evidence-based medicine.