The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF), the federal panel that issues evidence-based recommendations for cancer screenings, heart disease prevention, and other preventive care, has not met in almost a year — raising concerns about delays in life-saving guidance for millions of Americans.
Created in 1984, the USPSTF is an independent panel of volunteer doctors, nurses, and public health experts that evaluates the latest scientific research to determine which preventive services should be covered at no cost under the Affordable Care Act. More than 150 million privately insured Americans, including 37 million children, benefit from these recommendations, along with roughly 20 million Medicaid and 61 million Medicare enrollees.
The task force usually holds three voting meetings per year, in March, July, and November. Its last official meeting was in March 2025. The July session was canceled, and the November meeting was scrapped due to a government shutdown. No future meetings have been announced.
Membership and Pending Recommendations
The panel currently operates with only 11 members, down from the usual 16, after five members’ terms expired last year and have not been replaced publicly. Several important recommendations remain pending, including updates to cervical cancer screening and perinatal depression screening and counseling.
Dr. Alex Krist, former USPSTF chair, emphasized the panel’s importance: “They’re very much lifesaving recommendations. For clinicians, the task force is kind of our North Star on what we should do and not do for prevention.” He noted that while the task force continues to meet virtually most weeks, official votes typically only happen during the three scheduled meetings.
Political Context
The USPSTF’s inactivity coincides with Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s reshaping of other federal advisory committees. In June, Kennedy replaced all members of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), which advises the CDC on vaccines. Similarly, the FDA’s Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee has seen a sharp reduction in public meetings.
Kennedy has the authority to appoint and dismiss USPSTF members. A Wall Street Journal report from July indicated he privately criticized the panel as too “woke.” Sources told NBC News that he considered removing all members. The American Medical Association urged him to maintain the panel unchanged. HHS has not clarified whether changes or a March meeting are forthcoming.
Experts warn that politicizing the task force threatens its ability to provide impartial, science-based guidance. Dorit Reiss, law professor at the University of California College of the Law, San Francisco, said, “Their main job is to offer guidance to doctors. Politicizing the panel destroys that function. Doctors will, rightly, be less inclined to follow the guidance of an intentionally biased panel.”
Importance of USPSTF Recommendations
The USPSTF currently issues 54 covered preventive services, including:
- Biennial mammograms starting at age 40
- Anxiety screenings for children as young as 8
- Statins for adults 40–75 with at least one heart disease risk factor
The panel also considers how health risks vary across populations, including LGBTQ people and Black women, who experience higher maternal mortality rates than white women. Dr. Robert Lawrence, the first chair of the USPSTF, expressed concern that such research could be dismissed under current leadership, warning that “dismantling the task force would be an existential threat to clinical practice.”
Without regular meetings and a full panel, updates to evidence-based recommendations could be delayed, potentially affecting preventive care for millions of Americans.
