An independent panel of medical experts that shapes preventive care for patients in the United States will not hold its regular meeting this month, a year since its members last gathered.
There is now growing concern that the US Department of Health and Human Services is abandoning the US Preventive Services Task Force – or pushing it into “quiet paralysis.”
generally, The task force meets three times a year – in March, July and November – but has not met since March 2025. HHS spokesman Andrew Nixon said in an email Tuesday that the task force’s first meeting of the year was postponed and “will be rescheduled in the coming months.”
The USPSTF is responsible for recommendations regarding cancer screening, STI testing, counseling, and other types of preventive care. Postponing meetings could delay updates to recommendations that guide patient care and insurance coverage.
Some doctors worry it could be a sign that HHS plans to dismantle the long-running group entirely, in the same way that other federal advisory groups have been restructured.
“I’m worried they might overdo it, but I’m less worried about a dramatic announcement and more about quiet paralysis,” said Dr. Aaron Carroll, a pediatrician and CEO of the nonprofit AcademyHealth, a national organization for health services and policy researchers.
“The USPSTF was created by statute, so theoretically it would take congressional action to eliminate it, but you can still weaken it in a number of ways that matter to patients and physicians,” Carroll said. “You can slow down hiring, delay work, change standards or reduce the ability of employees to conduct rigorous reviews.”
This “quiet paralysis” now appears to be occurring, he said.
The USPSTF, established in 1984, is a national panel of 16 volunteers that issues evidence-based recommendations about preventive health services.
But Carroll said, “The terms of five of the 16 members expired on January 1. They have not been replaced.” According to the USPSTF, new members are selected HHS Secretary.
The recommendations of the task force on clinical services guide doctors and Notify Insurance CoverageVery. Its recommendations are given grades, and the Affordable Care Act requires that insurers cover prevention services that get an A. A or B grade No fee will be paid to the patients by the group.
“That’s why hundreds of millions of Americans can get services like colorectal screening or statin prevention without copays,” Carroll said.
Since 1998, Congress has directed Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) to convene and support the task force. Each year, the task force presents a report to congress To highlight gaps in research and highlight areas that require greater attention.
But last year, it did not submit its report, which is used to help make National Institutes of Health funding decisions.
“We have also heard reports of turnover among AHRQ staff who support the evidence reviews that the task force makes possible,” Carroll said.
Now uncertainty looms over whether the USPSTF will meet again — and how that might affect doctors and patients.
“If you leave seats empty, if you delay meetings, if you hollow out evidence staff, you can effectively disable the task force without even formally ending it. So we’re concerned, because there are so many warning signs piling up at the same time,” Carroll said. “When you see multiple pieces of normal machinery missing at once, it’s fair to ask whether the task force is capable of doing its job.”
The action of the task force is hanging in the balance
The task force typically issues 20 to 25 new guidelines annually, said Dr. Alex Crist, a professor of family medicine at Virginia Commonwealth University and former chair of the task force. But last year it issued only five new guidelines.
“These are important recommendations for preventive services that save lives,” Crist said, noting that he regularly relies on the task force’s guidance when he sees patients.
The task force has also not been able to move forward Recommendations that are under review and development In the draft or research stages. Its website does not list any topics in the research planning stage and lists 14 topics in the draft recommendation development stage, including topics related to Autism Spectrum Disorder Screening, breast cancer medicine, Chronic kidney disease diagnosis and for practical advice sexually transmitted infections.
“As treatments change, as methods change, as technology changes, it’s important to update what we do with screening. It’s true for breast cancer. It’s true for prostate cancer. It’s true for colon cancer,” Carroll said. “All of these things would be within the scope of the USPSTF.”
There are also four topics awaiting finalization of the draft recommendations, including self-collection of human papillomavirus (HPV) testing. cervical cancer For the first time. summary of draft recommendation The date is December 2024, Crist said, and it typically takes about six months to get final approval.
The Health Resources and Services Administration updated its cervical cancer screening guidelines in January to include self-collected samples, meaning patients will be covered at no cost by insurers under the Affordable Care Act. But most primary care doctors look to the task force for guidance, so until the task force acts, the self-collection testing method won’t get as much attention or adoption, Crist said.
Was a member of the task force “nominated for service In this role that is so important to defining preventive care for our country, and they have been in a year of a holding pattern, which has been confusing for everyone,” Crist said.
“The government has abandoned the US Preventive Services Task Force,” he said. “They’ve abandoned them and sidelined them and kept them from doing the work they’re very good at doing.”
Routine preventive care ‘in jeopardy’
Under Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and his Make America Healthy Again movement, HHS’s focus has been on “the root causes of the chronic disease epidemic”, and recent actions have included sweeping changes to vaccine policy, dietary guidelines, and the structure of health agencies. Last year, when the Prevention Task Force did not convene its July meeting, concerns grew that Kennedy might attempt to remove all USPSTF members.
That time, American Medical Association wrote letter Expressing his “deep concern” to Kennedy, he called for the continuation of the appointed membership and the resumption of regular meetings.
“We urge you to retain previously appointed USPSTF members and continue the Task Force’s regular meeting schedule to advance, update, and disseminate recommendations without delay,” the AMA said. wrote.
Changes to the task force could affect the ability of millions of Americans to access preventive care, Dr. Robert Lawrence and Steven Wolf wrote in an opinion article for the magazine History of Internal Medicine Last week.
“A generation of insured Americans has become addicted to free mammograms, colonoscopies, oral contraceptives, and other USPSTF-recommended preventive services,” wrote Woolf, the task force’s first chair and its first scientific adviser. “It’s all in jeopardy.”
If the task force’s standards are weakened, payers and consumers could stop paying for “questionable screening tests or counseling patients about vaccine risks of unconventional dietary practices.”
Even though Kennedy cannot eliminate the task force without Congressional approval, he can “disrupt the USPSTF by freezing its budget and staffing.”
Lawrence and Wolf expressed concern that trust in the task force could be diminished, as they say it is to the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which Kennedy overhauled Last year.
They wrote, “What is happening to scientific advisory groups under the current administration poses a major threat to evidence-based policy and could easily return health care and public health practice in the United States to the conditions of the early 1980s.”
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