HHS Postpones Meeting of Preventive Health Panel for 3rd Time

Health officials have postponed a meeting of the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, which has not met in about a year, a spokeswoman said on March 4.

The task force meeting slated to take place soon “has been postponed and will be rescheduled in the coming months,” Emily Hilliard, a spokeswoman for the Department of Health and Human Services, told The Epoch Times in an email.

The department declined to provide a reason for the postponement.

The task force was convened in 1984 to review preventive services data and issue recommendations on preventive services.

The 2010 Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, empowered the task force to decide which preventive medical services health insurers must cover.

The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force’s last meeting was in March 2025. It was supposed to meet in July 2025 and November 2025, but those meetings were canceled or postponed amid a government shutdown.

The task force has also not issued its annual report for 2025.

According to its website, the task force is working on drafting recommendations for 14 topics, including screening for autism in young children and medication to reduce the risk of breast cancer. It is finalizing recommendations for four additional subjects.

The task force has released about a dozen recommendations and research plans since it last met, including a draft recommendation on interventions to reduce unhealthy use of alcohol.

The health secretary appoints the task force’s 16 members, who serve four-year terms as volunteers. Per the law, members must have “appropriate expertise,” be independent, and, to the “extent practicable, not subject to political pressure.”

Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has not yet selected any members.

A spokesperson for the health department told The Epoch Times in an email in 2025 that officials had not decided whether to revamp the task force. The department has not addressed the matter since then.

The American Medical Association, around that time, wrote to Kennedy to call on him to retain the previously appointed task force members, “and commit to the long-standing process of regular meetings to ensure their important work can continue without interruption.”

The Supreme Court on June 27, 2025, ruled that it was constitutional for the health secretary to pick members, rather than the president, for such a key entity.

Kennedy that year replaced all members of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s vaccine advisory committee, and removed one member from the Food and Drug Administration’s vaccine advisory panel.

He also recently replaced the members of a federal Alzheimer’s committee and named new members to a government autism committee, prompting a group of scientists to create an alternative panel they said would better represent autism researchers.