Judge orders CDC to restore webpages that doctors consult but were dropped under Trump order
WASHINGTON – A federal judge on Tuesday ordered the Department of Health and Human Services to restore public medical information on websites that was removed under one of President Donald Trump’s executive orders aimed at transgender care.
U.S. District Judge John Bates' order came after the group Doctors of America said the removal of websites at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention hurt patient care because doctors rely on the sites for information about treating ailments. He ordered the webpages be restored to their previous condition as of Jan. 30 by the midnight Tuesday.
"If those doctors cannot provide these individuals the care they need (and deserve) within the scheduled and often limited time frame, there is a chance that some individuals will not receive treatment, including for severe, life-threatening conditions," Bates wrote. "The public thus has a strong interest in avoiding these serious injuries to the public health."
Zachary Shelley, a lawyer for the advocacy group Public Citizen, which represented the group of 27,000 doctors and medical trainees, had told Bates during a hearing Monday he could prevent harm in the future from public health threats by ordering the government to restore the websites.
“There is immense harm to the public,” Shelley said. “There is increased risk of disease outbreak.”
But James Harlow, a Justice Department lawyer defending the agencies, said the doctors weren’t saying they lacked all information to treat diseases, just that it perhaps took longer to find it.
Trump’s order on his first day in office directed the government to recognize two genders, male and female, to prevent what he said was the threat of biological men identifying as women to gain access to settings such as domestic-abuse shelters and showers.
In response, the Office of Personnel Management sent a memo detailing how to avoid promoting “gender ideology.” Two agencies within the health department, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Food and Drug Administration, removed webpages under that guidance.
Doctors for America challenged the order in federal court. The doctors said removing the publicly available information, some of which had been posted since the 1990s, hurt their treatment of patients.
At the CDC, the missing webpages included information about CDC surveillance of school-age bullying, contraception and information about preventing the spread of the virus that causes AIDS. At the FDA, the missing pages dealt with how to increase female enrollment in clinical trials.