News summary produced by Claude AI
The Trump administration has suspended all meetings of the US Preventive Services Task Force since March 2025, delaying multiple health recommendations by over a year, according to reporting on the agency’s operations.
The task force, established during the Reagan administration and tied to insurance coverage requirements under the Affordable Care Act, had been reviewing updated evidence on childhood tobacco cessation alongside 13 other topics including cervical cancer screening, perinatal depression, and autism screening. A former task force member, Dr. Michael Silverstein, stated that new evidence on tobacco cessation for children had emerged and was “very encouraging,” though the committee’s inability to meet formally prevented a draft recommendation from being completed. The task force last addressed childhood tobacco cessation in 2020, when it found insufficient research to recommend cessation interventions for children.
Health Secretary Kennedy dismissed two task force leaders in May and characterized members as “lackadaisical and negligent for 20 years” during an April congressional hearing. A 2025 Supreme Court ruling clarified that Kennedy possesses authority to appoint and remove task force members. The HHS press office attributed the postponement of a scheduled July meeting to an “unprecedented number of nominations” requiring additional time for member selection and onboarding, with rescheduling to late August announced.
The stalled task force activity occurs alongside broader changes to federal smoking-related programs. The CDC’s office on smoking and health has been inactive for over a year, a long-running anti-smoking advertising campaign ended, and the FDA’s lead tobacco regulator was removed in April 2025. Critics expressed concern about transparency, with the head of AcademyHealth stating that the lack of information about the administration’s priorities for the task force after a full year was “staggering.” Meanwhile, some medical device and test manufacturers have begun lobbying efforts related to potential task force recommendations, according to disclosed lobbying reports.