Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is reportedly set to remove all 16 members of a cancer screening and HIV medication task force because he believes they’re too “woke.”
The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday that the Health and Human Services Secretary is planning to completely overhaul the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, an organization comprised of volunteer doctors, nurses and public health experts that decides which types of preventive health measures, like cancer screenings, insurance providers must cover free of charge to patients.
The Journal quotes individuals familiar with Kennedy’s plans who say the anti-vaccine official considers the task force too “woke.”
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It’s unclear what exactly led Kennedy to adopt this view. But the Journal notes that a July 9 article in The American Conservative called attention to the task force’s use of the terms “pregnant persons,” “structural racism,” and “microaggressions” in recent publications.
Other departments in the Trump administration have become obsessed with rooting out anything to do with DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) initiatives and content.
Yet this has at times resulted in overly broad mandates that have cut out unrelated items, like when the Defense Department ended up marking for deletion a photo on its website of the Enola Gay, the World War II B-29 bomber that dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima.
A spokesperson for Kennedy told the Journal that he “looks forward to working with the USPSTF to improve public health.”
Kennedy’s plans for the task force are the latest in a long line of controversial decisions.
Last month, he removed all members of the nation’s top advisory committee on vaccinations, drawing outrage from medical experts and Democrats in Congress.
A spokesperson for the public affairs staff at HHS told the Daily Beast in a statement: “No final decision has been made on how the USPSTF can better support HHS’ mandate to Make America Healthy Again.”
