He’s not done with vaccines.
Not by a long shot.
After shaking up a key vaccine advisory panel with skeptics, Robert Kennedy, Jr. turns his gaze to the USPSTF. It’s an independent body. They decide what preventive care counts. Think cancer screenings. Or how much insurance pays for it.
Kennedy wants to break it apart.
He called the current setup “lackadaisical” at a Senate hearing back in April. Negligent. That’s the word. He claims the panel lacks voices from certain corners—oncologists, anesthesiologists—who he argues have been sidelined for too long.
But here is the hitch.
The Task Force hasn’t met since March. Kennedy fired its leadership. Dr. John Wong. Dr. Esa Davis. Gone in May. Now? They are pushing the July meeting to August. Just to buy time. Time to hire the new people. Time to onboard them.
Why wait?
Maybe because he’s picking them himself.
Adam Carroll doesn’t look at this optimistically. He runs AcademyHealth. He told Politico the new appointees might push policies that ignore the science. Kennedy hinted that insurers should cover more screenings. Sounds good, right? Until you realize those screenings might lack evidence. Or worse, do more harm than good.
Does that sound like preventive medicine to you?
The American Medical Association is worried.
They issued statements in July and after the firings. Deep concern, they called it. The USPSTF plays a non-partisan role. Doctors rely on it to stop disease before it starts. The AMA wants Kennedy to restore the old way of picking members. Transparent. Expert. Not political.
“Our patients’ lives depend on it.”
Simple enough.
The department says the August meeting will allow time for selection. For onboarding. A polite way of saying the old guard is out. The new one hasn’t arrived.
So we wait.
The science sits on the shelf.
