RFK Jr. to Fire 16-Member Health Advisory Panel

Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will reportedly fire all 16 members of a task force that determines what health insurers must cover.

Insiders told the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) that RFK Jr. is planning to fire all 16 members of the US Preventative Services Task Force (USPSTF), a panel that determines the screenings, medications, and health measures that insurers must cover free of charge.

The task force also recommends certain HIV-prevention drugs, a fact that triggered a Supreme Court ruling in June after complaints were made that such insurance requirements violated religious freedoms.

While the court found that decisions taken by the panel were constitutional, they also established that HHS has the authority to indiscriminately remove panel members.

RFK Jr. reportedly wants to fire all 16 members of the USPSTF because they are too "woke" and have a "left-wing ideological orthodoxy," the WSJ reported.

When approached for comment, a spokesperson for RFK Jr. told the WSJ that "the Secretary looks forward to working with the USPSTF to improve public health," but neither confirmed nor denied that the firings would go ahead.

Note that in the Braidwood v. Becerra Supreme Court case, SCOTUS did not effectively grant RFK Jr the right to throw out any of the catalogue of recommendations from the US Preventive Services Task Force, such as those regarding HIV-prevention drugs or cancer screenings, which… pic.twitter.com/wU5WVgCrAl

— Benjamin Ryan (@benryanwriter) July 25, 2025

It is possible that if the firings go ahead as part of President Donald Trump's brutal crackdown on any form of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) in federal departments and agencies.

RFK Jr. is also waging a war against vaccinations and other forms of medicine, having removed members of a vaccine advisory committee and replaced them with a new panel that included vaccine skeptics.

Senator Patty Murray, a Democrat who sits on the Senate's Health Committee, railed against the decision to fire all 16 members of the USPSTF.

"In no world should experts be replaced with unqualified anti-science cronies of RFK Jr. who will make preventive healthcare more expensive and harder to get over baseless conspiracy theories or debunked disinformation," she said.