25 February 2026
read 3 minutes
key takeaways:
- HHS could “destroy the USPSTF by freezing its budget and staffing,” the former members said.
- Major changes to the task force could have implications for insurance coverage and high-risk groups.
The future of the US Preventive Services Task Force ‘remains unclear,’ and the threat to its structure and scientific processes “has implications for millions of Americans,” according to former members of the task force.
The USPSTF regularly issues recommendations on preventive health services. Under the Affordable Care Act, health insurance companies are required to cover services with an A or B grade recommendation from the task force.
HHS could “destroy the USPSTF by freezing its budget and staffing,” the former members said. Image: Adobe Stock
The frequency of new USPSTF recommendations has declined significantly over the past year. The task force has not published any draft or final recommendations. From August 2025. However, the task force’s website shows that four recommendations related to cervical cancer screening and perinatal depression are still waiting to be finalized.
According to the report of new York Times, USPSTF members have not met since March of last year, with HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. postponing meetings scheduled for July and November.
Robert S. Lawrence, MD, Professor Emeritus at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and Steven H. Wolf, MD, MPH, A professor in the department of family medicine and population health at Virginia Commonwealth University said that a generation of Americans have benefited from the USPSTF’s guidance on preventive services, “such as the appropriate age and individual conditions that should trigger a service and, importantly, when there is a lack of evidence to support certain preventive services that they can consider.”
But “all of this is in jeopardy,” he wrote in an editorial. History of Internal Medicine.
During the second Trump administration, there has been a large-scale reorganization of many federal health agencies.
One of the most sweeping changes occurred within CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP). which included the expulsion Of all 17 members by Kennedy last year.
Lawrence, who served as the first chair of the USPSTF, and Wolf, the task force’s first scientific advisor, said that the replacement of those members in the USPSTF’s collaborative program “abandoned ACIP’s long-standing evidence-to-recommendations framework and started changing policy To be in line with their ideological views. Public confidence in ACIP has diminished, and vaccine policy is in chaos.
Whether the USPSTF experiences a similar reorganization is unclear.
Over 40 former USPSTF Chairmen, Members, and Scientific Directors had previously met Kennedy Protecting the personnel and functions of the task force.
Lawrence and Wolf said Kennedy cannot eliminate the task force without congressional approval, but he can “eliminate the USPSTF by freezing its budget and staff. He can replace its members and remove its rules of evidence to modify or rescind USPSTF recommendations that touch on topics that are ideologically sensitive with the administration, such as drug use, sexually transmitted diseases, HIV infection or mental Health.”
Additionally, recommendations that prioritize services for high-risk groups such as LGBTQ+ or diverse populations “may be missing,” they wrote.
Lawrence and Wolf wrote, “Abandoning USPSTF procedures would clear the way for the Administration to issue new recommendations for enthusiast screening technologies or lifestyle practices endorsed by enthusiasts.”
Former members explained that as the A and B recommendations disappear, evidence-based preventive services will require co-payments.
“Reverse targeting will return, with low-income, high-risk patients abandoning services because of cost, widening the wealth gap in disease burden,” they wrote.
Lawrence and Woolf also noted that the law requiring payers to cover services that receive A or B recommendations “applies even if the USPSTF, like ACIP, loses its experienced members and rigorous methods and begins making recommendations based on weaker evidence.”
“Purchasers and insured populations may find themselves paying for questionable screening tests or for counseling patients about vaccine risks or unconventional dietary practices,” they wrote. “As happened with ACIP, the medical and public health communities may lose confidence in the USPSTF and look to professional organizations for guidance on preventive services.”
Lawrence and Wolf said that what the scientific advisory groups are experiencing overall poses a major threat that could take health care and public health practices “back to the conditions of the early 1980s.”
“The current ACIP’s disorganized proceedings remind us of the poor practices we abandoned decades ago,” he wrote. “Once again, practice recommendations are being made without comprehensive examination of all relevant evidence. Study findings are being accepted at face value without attention to design flaws. Data are being cherry-picked to suit biases, beliefs, or ideology.”
It took decades of work to build trust in advisory groups, improve analyzes for evaluating evidence, and refine processes for formulating evidence-based recommendations, Lawrence and Wolf wrote.
They concluded, “This is a potential threat to clinical practice and population health that we ignore at our peril.”
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