New Preventive Panel Members
Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Appoints Eight New Members to Preventive Services Panel
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Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. appointed eight new members to the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, including new chair Seth Corey, a pediatric hematologist-oncologist at Cleveland Clinic. The appointments expand the panel beyond its traditional emphasis on primary care physicians by adding specialists in oncology, cardiology, gastroenterology, radiology and other fields, as well as a health-care finance professor. The task force’s recommendations influence whether insurers must cover preventive services without cost-sharing, including cancer screenings and HIV-prevention drugs such as PrEP. Kennedy said the changes would strengthen scientific rigor and evidence-based decision-making, while the American Medical Association urged officials to preserve a strong primary-care voice. The panel had been left with vacancies and had not met for more than a year, and public-health advocates said they would closely monitor its future recommendations, particularly their effects on HIV prevention and communities disproportionately affected by the disease.
Key Points
1
The USPSTF has 16 volunteer members serving staggered four-year terms, and the eight new appointees join eight members who were already serving. The newly appointed members include pediatrician Patrick Hunter, cardiovascular specialists Ronald Karlsberg and Venkatesh Murthy, family physician Goldie Stands-Over-Bull, gastroenterologist Louis Wilson, radiologist Dennis Wulfeck and health-care finance expert Stephen Parente.
2
Two vice chairs, John Wong and Esa Davis, were dismissed by Kennedy in May after receiving termination letters that cited a review of the task force’s appointments. The move followed Kennedy’s earlier criticism of the panel and his stated intention to remove members he viewed as too “woke.”
3
Before the appointments, the task force had been preparing recommendations on breast-cancer genetic screening, pediatric autism screening and cervical-cancer screening, but its meetings were canceled and its website had not published new information since August 2025.
4
The USPSTF currently gives HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis its highest recommendation for adolescents and adults at increased risk of acquiring HIV, a rating that supports access to PrEP without cost-sharing for many people with private insurance. NMAC CEO Harold J. Phillips urged the reconstituted panel to consider prevention access and outcomes for communities of color, which continue to face a disproportionate burden of HIV.
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