Last week, HHS fired the two remaining chairs of the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF). Task force members are independent, volunteer experts who make evidence-based clinical recommendations for preventive care. Most are practicing primary care clinicians. The chairs leading the task force have 4 or more years of exemplary experience serving as members. Historically, members are comprehensively vetted for any financial conflicts of interest and are required to have the research skills needed to evaluate and synthesize the available scientific evidence about each of the more than 90 USPSTF topics.
Both fired chairs ably met these criteria. Chair John Wong, MD, an internist and professor at Tufts School of Medicine, and vice chair Esa Davis, MD, MPH, a family medicine physician and a senior associate dean at the University of Maryland Baltimore, are highly qualified and brought tremendous expertise and rigor to the work of the USPSTF during their years of service.
The reasons stated in the dismissal letters signed by HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy were "administrative" rather than performance based, and intended to "help protect the task force and preserve confidence in the continuity and durability of its work."
