Q and A: U.S. Preventive Services Task Force Who are the
members? Its 16 volunteers include doctors, nurses and public
health researchers with expertise in analyzing medical evidence.
Who appoints them? Carolyn Clancy, the director of the Agency
for Healthcare Research and Quality. Are panelists government
employees? No. The task force was created by Congress to advise
the public on ways to stay healthy, and members issue guidelines
to help primary care doctors make sense of the best and latest
medical evidence, says chairwoman Virginia Moyer, a professor of
pediatrics at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston. How does
the task force grade services? The task force gives out letter
grades, based on whether a service will help or harm patients.
An A rating is its highest grade. In 2009, for example, the task
force suggested women ages 50 to 74 get mammograms every other
year, giving the procedures a grade of B, which means there was
"moderate certainty" that their benefit was "moderate to
substantial" for these