\n An independent panel of medical experts that shapes preventive care for patients in the United States will not hold its regular meeting this month, marking one year since its members last gathered.\n <\/p>\n
\n Now there\u2019s growing concern that the US Department of Health and Human Services is abandoning the US Preventive Services Task Force \u2013 or pushing it into \u201cquiet paralysis.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n Ordinarily, the task force meets three times a year<\/a> \u2013 in March, July and November \u2013 but it has not met since March 2025. HHS spokesperson Andrew Nixon said in an email Tuesday that the task force\u2019s first meeting of the year was postponed and \u201cwill be rescheduled in the coming months.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n The USPSTF is responsible for recommendations around cancer screenings, STI testing, counseling and other types of preventive care. Postponing meetings may delay updates to recommendations that guide patient care and insurance coverage.\n <\/p>\n \n Some doctors worry that this could be a sign that HHS plans to dismantle the longtime group altogether, similar to how other federal advisory groups have been restructured.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cI do worry that they could eliminate it, but I worry less about a dramatic announcement and more about quiet paralysis,\u201d said Dr. Aaron Carroll, a pediatrician and CEO of the nonprofit AcademyHealth, a national organization for health services and policy researchers.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cThe USPSTF was created in statute, so eliminating it theoretically would take congressional action, but you can still undermine it in so many ways that matter to patients and clinicians,\u201d Carroll said. \u201cYou can slow appointments, delay the work, change the standards or reduce the staff capacity that produces the rigorous reviews.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n He added that this \u201cquiet paralysis\u201d appears to be happening now.\n <\/p>\n \n The USPSTF, established in 1984, is a national panel of 16 volunteers who issue evidence-based recommendations about preventive health services.\n <\/p>\n \n But \u201cfive of the 16 members\u2019 terms ended on January 1. They have not been replaced,\u201d Carroll said. According to the USPSTF, new members are selected by the HHS secretary<\/a>.\n <\/p>\n \n The task force\u2019s recommendations on clinical services guide doctors and inform insurance coverage<\/a>, too. Its recommendations are given grades, and the Affordable Care Act requires that insurers cover prevention services that get an A or B grade<\/a> from the group at no cost to patients.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cThat\u2019s why millions and millions of Americans can get services like colorectal screening or statin prevention without a copay,\u201d Carroll said.\n <\/p>\n \n Since 1998, Congress has directed the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality<\/a> (AHRQ) to convene and support the task force. Each year, the task force submits a report to Congress<\/a> outlining gaps in research and highlighting areas where more focus is needed.\n <\/p>\n \n But last year, it did not submit its report, which is used to help inform the National Institutes of Health\u2019s grant decision-making.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cWe\u2019ve also heard reports of turnover among the AHRQ staff who support the evidence reviews that make the task force possible,\u201d Carroll said.\n <\/p>\n \n Uncertainty now looms over whether or when the USPSTF may meet again \u2014 and how that could affect doctors and patients.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cIf you leave seats empty, if you delay meetings, if you hollow out the evidence staff, you can effectively disable the task force even without formally ending it. So we\u2019re concerned, because several warning signs are stacking up at the same time,\u201d Carroll said. \u201cWhen you see multiple pieces of the normal machinery missing at once, it\u2019s reasonable to ask whether the task force is able to do its job.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n The task force typically releases 20 to 25 new guidelines annually, said Dr. Alex Krist, a professor of family medicine at Virginia Commonwealth University and former task force chair. But last year, it released only about five new guidelines.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cThese are vital recommendations for preventive services that save lives,\u201d Krist said, noting that he regularly depends on the task force\u2019s guidance when he sees patients.\n <\/p>\n \n The task force also hasn\u2019t been able to advance recommendations that are under review and development<\/a> in the draft or research stages. Its website lists no topics in the research plan phase and 14 topics in the draft recommendation development stage, including those related to autism spectrum disorder screening<\/a>, breast cancer medication<\/a>, chronic kidney disease screening<\/a> and behavioral counseling for sexually transmitted infections<\/a>.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cIt\u2019s important to update what we do with screening as treatments change, as methods change, as technology changes. That\u2019s true for breast cancer. That\u2019s true for prostate cancer. It\u2019s true for colon cancer,\u201d Carroll said. \u201cAll of these things would be under the purview of the USPSTF.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n There are also four topics awaiting finalization of draft recommendations, including the self-collection of human papillomavirus (HPV) testing for cervical cancer<\/a> for the first time. The summary of this draft recommendation<\/a> dates to December 2024, and it typically takes about six months for final approval, Krist said.\n <\/p>\n \n The Health Resources and Services Administration updated its cervical cancer screening guidelines to include self-collected samples in January, which means it will be covered by insurers at no cost to patients under the Affordable Care Act. But most primary care doctors look to the task force for guidance, so the self-collection testing method won\u2019t receive as much attention or adoption until the task force acts, Krist said.\n <\/p>\n \n The task force members were \u201cnominated to serve<\/a> in this role that is so vital for defining preventive care for our country, and they\u2019ve been in a year of a holding pattern, which has got to be confusing for everyone,\u201d Krist said.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cThe government has abandoned the US Preventive Services Task Force,\u201d he said. \u201cThey\u2019ve abandoned them and sidelined them and forbid them from being able to do the work that they\u2019re so good at doing.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n Under Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and his Make America Healthy Again movement, HHS has been focused on \u201cthe root causes of the chronic disease epidemic,\u201d and recent actions include sweeping changes to vaccine policy, dietary guidelines and the structure of health agencies. Last year, when the prevention task force did not convene for its July meeting, concern grew that Kennedy might attempt to remove all members of the USPSTF.\n <\/p>\n \n At the time, the American Medical Association wrote a letter<\/a> to Kennedy expressing its \u201cdeep concern,\u201d calling for the appointed membership to continue and for regular meetings to resume.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cWe urge you to keep the previously appointed USPSTF members and continue the task force\u2019s regular meeting schedule to ensure recommendations are put forth, updated, and disseminated without delay,\u201d the AMA wrote<\/a>.\n <\/p>\n \n Changes to the task force could affect millions of Americans\u2019 ability to access preventive care, Drs. Robert Lawrence and Steven Woolf wrote in an opinion piece for the journal Annals of Internal Medicine<\/a> last week.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cA generation of insured Americans have grown accustomed to free mammograms, colonoscopies, oral contraceptives and other USPSTF-recommended preventive services,\u201d wrote Lawrence, the task force\u2019s first chair, and Woolf, its first scientific adviser. \u201cAll this is in jeopardy.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n If the task force\u2019s standards are weakened, payers and consumers could wind up paying for \u201cdubious screening tests or for counseling patients about vaccine risks of unconventional dietary practices,\u201d they wrote.\n <\/p>\n \n Even though Kennedy cannot abolish the task force without congressional approval, he can \u201cscuttle the USPSTF by choking off its budget and staff.\u201d\n <\/p>\n