On Tuesday, a judge ordered the Department of Health and Human Services, Center for Disease Control, and Food and Drug Administration to restore several of the webpages they removed following President Trump’s executive order attacking diversity, equity and inclusion.
The health agencies have until 11:59 p.m. on February 11 to restore the pages to how they were on January 30, and “identify any other resources that [Doctors for America] DFA members rely on to provide medical care and that defendants removed or substantially modified on or after January 29, 2025, without adequate notice or reasoned explanation,” U.S. District Judge John Bates wrote in the order.
The nonprofit Doctors for America is suing the health agencies following their takedown of these resources in compliance with President Trump’s executive order “Defending Women,” which demanded federal agencies scrub their websites. “Our team’s government affairs firm is advising that as of 5pm today, all U.S. government agency websites will be taken down,” an internal email obtained by 404 Media on February 1 said. “According to reports, agencies are unable to comply fast enough with President Trump’s EO ordering all government entities to remove all DEI references from their websites, so these websites will be taken offline. There is no word on when they will be made available again.”
The online resources that were taken down that which Doctors for America cited in court documents include “The Youth Risk Behavioral Surveillance System,” webpages on “Data and Statistics” for “Adolescent and School Health,” webpages for “The Social Vulnerability Index,” “The Environmental Justice Index,” a report on “PrEP for the Prevention of HIV Infection in the U.S.: 2021 Guideline Summary,” pages about “HIV Monitoring,” A webpage on “Getting Tested for HIV.” 404 Media reported on several of these resources going dark as it happened. According to the Internet Archive, some of these sites, such as the Youth Risk Behavioral Surveillance System, were down for more than a week after the executive order, then went back up, and are online as of writing. Others, like the Adolescent and School Health page, are still down.
The judge’s decision is in response to Doctors for America’s motion for a temporary restraining order, as part of the organization’s case against federal agencies for removing information from their websites that healthcare workers need for their work. Doctors for America is suing the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), claiming that their removal of datasets and webpages violates the Administrative Procedure Act, and the Paperwork Reduction Act.
“Lack of access to CDC materials on infectious diseases not only harms DFA members’ ability to treat individual patients but also hampers their ability to respond to broader disease outbreaks,” Doctors for America wrote in court documents.
“Like many of my colleagues, I am both a doctor who takes care of patients and a researcher. Removing critical clinical information and datasets from the websites of CDC, FDA, and HHS not only puts the health of our patients at risk, but also endangers research that improves the health and health care of the American public,” Reshma Ramachandran, a member of the Doctors for America board of directors, said in a Doctors for America press release.
