RFK Jr.'s Preventive Care Panel Delay Draws Parallel to Vaccines

US Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.’s decision to delay a meeting of a key preventive services task force less than two weeks after the US Supreme Court cemented his authority over the panel’s work is stoking ongoing concerns about his agenda.

Public health experts fear the postponement of the US Preventive Services Task Force’s Thursday meeting could foreshadow an overhaul similar to that of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, where Kennedy fired the panel’s members and appointed handpicked replacements as part of his effort to revamp the health department’s structure and processes.

“When you disrupt something like the USPSTF, you’re disrupting how patients access no-cost preventive care, how clinicians practice, how insurers design coverage,” said Aaron Carroll, CEO of AcademyHealth. “Dismantling or politicizing that process just moves everything backwards.”

The move raised questions about what Kennedy has in store for the USPSTF, a largely independent body whose “A” and “B” recommendations mandate cost-free health insurance coverage for a series of typically noncontroversial services like cancer screenings and nutrition counseling.

At least one of those services, however, has prompted scrutiny in recent years. The panel’s power came under fire in Kennedy v. Braidwood Management, Inc. when religious conservatives challenged its recommendation to cover pre-exposure prophylaxis, or PrEP, to prevent HIV in people at risk for the disease.

The high court’s June 27 ruling in Braidwood affirms the health secretary’s power to remove USPSTF members and review their recommendations. The decision also preserved access to free preventive care under the Affordable Care Act, but could expose the panel to more political influence if Kennedy opts to interfere with the panel’s history of largely independent operations.

Department of Health and Human Services spokesperson Andrew Nixon confirmed the meeting was delayed but declined to answer questions regarding Kennedy’s plans for the panel’s members, its agenda, and its standing recommendations.

HIV Care

Kennedy has questioned whether HIV causes AIDS in the past, fomenting fringe theories and accusing former National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Anthony Fauci of instigating a “series of fake pandemics” in order to preserve NIAID’s relevance and curry favor with the pharmaceutical industry.

He appeared more open to HIV/AIDS prevention in answers to written questions from Senate Finance Committee ranking member Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) after his confirmation hearing in January. He promised to continue funding the Ryan White HIV/AIDS program and “all appropriate prevention programs” that included PrEP.

But he stopped short of promising to continue promoting PrEP usage or requiring insurers to cover all forms of the drug with no cost-sharing. He also said he believes HIV causes AIDS “in most cases.”

The Trump administration did tout the success of HIV/AIDS prevention programs in its 2026 budget, requesting $2.7 billion from Congress for Ryan White programs.

Carl Schmid, executive director of the HIV+Hepatitis Policy Institute, said he typically welcomes the task force’s updates to existing recommendations around PrEP. The panel often revisits recommendations in the face of new evidence and new medications, he said, and the Trump administration’s past support for HIV prevention makes him hopeful that work will continue.

“We don’t mind updating reviews, as long as they follow the science,” Schmid said.

“We made it through this significant potential barrier with the Supreme Court, and we’re going to continue to fight to make sure that it’s implemented and insurers comply,” he added.

USPSTF has also recommended fluoride supplements for infants who lack fluoride in their water supply—which states and localities have been halting under the influence of Kennedy, who opposes using the mineral in drinking water. Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Marty Makary announced in May the agency is beginning to remove unapproved, ingestible fluoride products from the market, and the Reagan-Udall Foundation is holding a public meeting on the issue July 23.

Senate Appropriations Committee ranking member Patty Murray (D-Wash.) questioned Kennedy’s motives in a statement Wednesday.

“In no world should experts be replaced with unqualified anti-science cronies of RFK Jr. who will make preventive health care more expensive and harder to get over baseless conspiracy theories or debunked disinformation,” she said.

Nonpolitical History

More than 100 organizations signed a letter in support of the task force Wednesday. The structure of the USPSTF is intentionally nonpolitical, AcademyHealth’s Carroll said. The task force’s 16 volunteer members are appointed to staggered four-year terms, ensuring that no single administration monopolizes its recommendations.

“Dismantling that structure is what we are most concerned about, not individuals who may or may not be appointed,” Carroll said. “It’s that this nonpartisan, independent structure which has existed for 40-plus years can all of a sudden be radically changed.”

The task force is housed within the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, which studies ways to improve health care delivery.

The agency has reportedly lost a significant number of staff amid President Donald Trump’s push to slash the federal workforce and is being combined with the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation as part of a broader reorganization.

The task force was previously largely free to appoint its own members and leadership, with some input from AHRQ, said Robert Otto Valdez, who led the agency under former President Joe Biden. The panel also follows a rigorous process in setting its own agenda.

AHRQ mainly provides administrative support to the panel, but Kennedy’s restructuring and the Supreme Court’s Wednesday decision to allow federal workforce firings to proceed could gut the agency, Valdez said.

“My biggest fear is that he’ll kill AHRQ,” Valdez said, arguing that Kennedy didn’t understand the agency’s mission.

“If he did, he’d recognize that the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality is central to what he needs to have in order to pursue his agenda,” he said. “And the task force is a vehicle for providing the kinds of scientific evidence that the medical community, over the last 41 years, has come to rely upon.”