By Deena Beasley
April 2 (Reuters) - The sidelining by U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. of the advisory panel that decides access to free preventive healthcare is delaying updates to screening guidelines for cancer, heart disease and other conditions, medical experts say.
The 16-member U.S. Preventive Services Task Force last met over a year ago. Three successive planned meetings were canceled and new members have not been named to replace the five volunteers whose terms expired in December.
The panel, established in 1984, determines which medical tests and treatments, such as routine cancer screening or HIV prevention, are provided cost-free under health insurance plans. It can also decide that a test or treatment should not be routine.
Without the task force "commercial insurances can choose or not choose to cover these new preventive services," said Dr. Alex Krist, a family practice physician at Virginia Commonwealth University and a former chair of the preventive care panel.
Early cancer detection saves lives and money, according to the American Cancer Society, but there are upfront costs. A recent study calculated the lifetime cost of mammograms for an average-risk U.S. woman at around $7,000.
The task force, which usually issues around 22 draft and final recommendations annually, last year posted seven and none have been issued so far this year.
The panel was in the earlier stages of updating guidelines including for prostate cancer screening, genetic testing for a mutation linked to breast cancer, and the use of drugs to prevent people at high risk from developing breast cancer.
TRUSTED EXPERTS
"We have to rely on a trusted group of experts who have really weighed the benefits and risks and are looking at overall population health and doing no harm," said Dr. Julie Gralow, chief medical officer at the American Society of Clinical Oncology. "Patients do trust these as well."
Medical groups, which don't always agree with the panel's guidelines, have called on Congress "to protect the integrity" of the task force. Last month, 19 U.S. senators sent a letter to Kennedy urging him to support the work of the panel.
Sidelining the task force aligns with broader goals outlined by President Donald Trump to reshape federal health regulation.
"The current administration would not only like to cut back on regulation, they would definitely like to cut back on required benefits under the Affordable Care Act," said Joseph Antos, senior fellow emeritus at conservative think tank the American Enterprise Institute.
The U.S. Supreme Court in a 2025 ruling involving insurance coverage for HIV prevention, affirmed that the Health Secretary has authority over the preventive care panel.
The panel in 2023 recommended that people at high risk be treated with drugs to prevent HIV infection, but that has not been updated to include Gilead Sciences' newer twice-yearly injection, Yeztugo.
As a result, patient costs for Yeztugo are set by individual plans, UnitedHealthcare, the largest U.S. health insurer, said in an email. The insurer said its commercial plans cover older HIV prevention medications at zero cost to patients.
An update to cervical cancer screening remains in the draft stage. After the first at-home pap smear was approved by regulators last year, a different federal agency stepped in to require that it be covered by insurers starting in 2027.
Other recommendations under review involve screening for unhealthy alcohol use or depression and whether vitamin D prevents fractures and falls in older people.
Cardiovascular medical groups recently advised that adults at high long-term risk of heart disease start cholesterol-lowering treatment as early as age 30 instead of the current 40.
The guidelines are expected to affect millions, but unless the federal task force matches them, insurers are not required to cover wider testing or treatment, the trade group America's Health Insurance Plans and UnitedHealthcare said in emails.
"Primary care is kind of struggling with what we should do," Virginia Commonwealth's Krist said. "The task force is meant to be objective."
(Reporting By Deena Beasley in Los AngelesEditing by Caroline Humer and Bill Berkrot)
