Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has ousted the leadership of a key expert panel that determines which preventive care services Americans can access for free.
Kennedy’s purge of the two leaders of the Preventive Services Task Force comes after he called the panel “lackadaisical and negligent” last month, telling lawmakers he intended to install new members “who have a clear mission.”
The influential task force decides which medical services, like mammograms, colonoscopies, and depression screenings, insurers must fully cover. But Kennedy, 72, has hamstrung the task force by indefinitely postponing its last three meetings and allowing several seats to lapse without replacement, according to The New York Times. Half of the 16 seats are unfilled, CNN reports.
Kennedy’s removal of the task force’s leaders comes as the anti-vaccine activist has sought to expand his influence over the HHS’s panels of independent medical experts, including by firing all 17 members of the CDC’s independent vaccine advisory panel.
Dr. John Wong of Tufts Medical Center, the task force chair, and Esa Davis of the University of Maryland School of Medicine, the vice chair, were informed of their firing in letters on May 11.
The letter said they were being dismissed “to avoid uncertainty that could jeopardize the validity of future Task Force actions,” according to CNN, which has seen the letters.
“The Department is taking this step to help protect the Task Force and preserve confidence in the continuity and durability of its work,” said the letter, which also described the firings as an administrative decision not related to the leaders’ performances.
The Daily Beast has reached out to HHS for comment. When contacted by the New York Times, Andrew Nixon, a spokesman for the Department of Health and Human Services, directed the publication to the letters.
The firing comes days before a May 23 deadline for submitting nominations for new task force members. Wong and Davis, who were removed before their terms expired, would normally have played a role in selecting the group’s new leadership, according to Politico.
Dr. Aaron Carroll, the president of the nonpartisan health policy group AcademyHealth, accused the Trump administration of “tampering with the critical infrastructure” necessary for Americans to trust government healthcare systems in comments to the Times.
Carroll said the task force’s credibility has been built on “transparent and rigorous procedures” in selecting members and assessing evidence.
During his tenure as the nation’s top health official, Kennedy has sidelined scientists, stacked his department with ideologues, and destroyed vital programs, while pushing health claims that many medical experts say are endangering Americans, such as his baseless claim that the measles vaccine causes autism.
