Top medical groups are outraged and alarmed that anti-vaccine Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has fired two leaders of an influential panel that makes recommendations and sets insurance coverage for preventive care—such as mammograms, colonoscopies, statin use, and depression screening.
On Wednesday, news broke that Kennedy had fired the two vice chairs of the US Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF), leaving the critical, nonpartisan panel half empty. Typically, the task force is made of 16 independent, volunteer preventive medicine experts who serve four-year, overlapping terms. But with the new firings, USPSTF has eight vacancies, including the chair and vice chair positions.
Kennedy has already undermined the USPSTF's work by failing to replace members whose terms ended at the turn of the year, preventing the task force from meeting over the past year, and blocking it from releasing finalized recommendations on self-collected samples for cervical cancer screening.
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