After not meeting for over a year and undergoing major turnover, HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. last week announced new members of the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force – including the USPSTF’s first-ever radiologist.
USPSTF was created in 1984 as a panel of experts tasked with producing evidence-based advice on preventive medical care, like cancer screening guidelines.
- But it’s that last responsibility that’s drawn the USPSTF into controversy. The group in 2009 changed its blanket recommendation regarding screening mammography for women aged 40 to 50, instead recommending women consult with their doctors. This sparked a backlash that persisted until 2023, when it said it would lower the age back down to 40.
Indeed, the USPSTF has often been accused of being too conservative in recommending new technologies that have life-saving potential.
- For example, its implementation of the new mammography screening guidelines neglected to recommend supplemental dense breast screening, despite the demonstrated connection between dense breasts and cancer risk.
Enter RFK, Jr., who as HHS secretary has appointment authority over the panel’s 16 members (who, it should be noted, serve as volunteers rather than as federal employees).
- He’s held the USPSTF with the same suspicion he reserves for the rest of the U.S. medical establishment, and on his watch the group has gone a year and a half without a meeting. He also removed both of the panel’s vice chairs in May.
RFK, Jr. hadn’t revealed much about his intentions for the panel, but that ended on September 17, when HHS announced a new slate of appointments.
- He tapped eight new members, including a number of medical specialists, addressing a frequent criticism that the USPSTF was too heavily weighted toward primary care and lacked specialty experience.
And in what is a first, he named a radiologist to the USPSTF: Dennis Wulfeck, MD, of MBB Radiology, a Radiology Partners-affiliated practice in Jacksonville, Florida.
- Wulfeck earned his MD at Wright State University, performed his residency at the University of Louisville, and completed a fellowship in nuclear medicine at the University of Cincinnati. Wulfeck has published research in nuclear medicine and has been involved in radiology practice issues.
What now for the USPSTF? While the new appointments seem to represent physicians from U.S. medicine’s mainstream, their work will be closely scrutinized for signs of politicization, particularly around RFK, Jr.’s pet issue of childhood vaccines. The USPSTF hasn’t said when its next meeting will take place.
The Takeaway
Radiology has long had a complicated relationship with the USPSTF, mostly due to its conservative stances on cancer screening and the adoption of new imaging technologies. Will that change with a radiologist now serving on the panel? We shall see.