Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said Thursday he’s overhauling a group of external experts who decide what medical services are preventive and must be covered fully by insurers under the Affordable Care Act.
“That committee has been lackadaisical and negligent for 20 years,” Kennedy said of the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, speaking before the House Ways and Means Committee.
Made of 16 experts, the task force is working on draft recommendations on autism screening in young children; breast cancer risk assessment and drugs to reduce risk; and counseling on early allergen introduction to prevent infant food allergies. Autism and food allergies in children are among Kennedy’s priorities for improving children’s health.
But the Department of Health and Human Services canceled three of the four meetings the group was scheduled to hold since President Donald Trump took office last year.
The Wall Street Journal reported last summer that Kennedy was planning to remove all 16 task force members because he considered them too “woke.”
“We’re now bringing new members on who have a clear mission,” Kennedy told lawmakers Thursday, adding that the task force will have more frequent meetings and transparency.
The Supreme Court ruled in June that the health secretary has the power to fire and appoint members of the task force and to reject its recommendations for which screenings or drugs should be offered to certain populations.
But some public health advocates worry that Kennedy would remake the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force to align it with his views, many of which go against mainstream science, the same way he overhauled the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices that advises the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, appointing members who shared his skepticism of vaccine safety.
A federal judge in Boston ruled in March that Kennedy’s appointments to the vaccine panel had been made inappropriately and were invalid.
