The Trump administration is targeting the expert panel that decides which cancer screenings and other preventive services insurance plans are required to cover, according to a new report.
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. plans to dismiss all 16 members of the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, disparaging them as too “woke,” people familiar with the matter told the Wall Street Journal on Friday night. The independent panel of national experts is tasked with making recommendations about clinical preventive services, such as screening tests, counseling services, and preventive medications.
The task force became a target for the right by using terms such as “pregnant persons" and highlighting racial discrimination during a discussion on risk factors for anxiety in older children and teens, according to the report.
"The task force mentioned the 'lasting psychological impact and stigma of enslaved Black women being forced to act as wet nurses' in an April publication on breast-feeding," according to the report.
A spokeswoman for Kennedy told the Journal, “The Secretary looks forward to working with the USPSTF to improve public health."
The move sparked immediate backlash from Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA), who sits on the Senate’s health committee.
“In no world should experts be replaced with unqualified anti-science cronies of RFK Jr. who will make preventive healthcare more expensive and harder to get over baseless conspiracy theories or debunked disinformation,” Murray told the Journal.
