The physicians’ advocacy group Doctors for America is suing federal agencies for removing information from their websites that health care professionals and researchers regularly use.
The left-leaning nonprofit group filed its lawsuit in the U.S. District Court of D.C. It 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).
Public Citizen Litigation Group is representing the organization.
After President Trump signed an executive order stating that the U.S. will only recognize two sexes, federal health agencies began scrubbing their websites of materials which the executive order said “promote gender ideology.”
This led to some websites erroneously being taken down as federal employees scrambled to comply with the order, with several web pages focusing on HIV/AIDS temporarily being taken down.
The complaint states, “The removal of the webpages and datasets creates a dangerous gap in the scientific data available to monitor and respond to disease outbreaks, deprives physicians of resources that guide clinical practice, and takes away key resources for communicating and engaging with patients.”
The suit cited several key websites that have been taken down since Trump’s “gender ideology” executive order was issued, including the Youth Risk Behavioral Surveillance System, the data and statistics webpage for Adolescent and School Health and the webpages for the Social Vulnerability Index.
“These federal agencies exist to serve the American people by protecting public health,” said Zach Shelley, Public Citizen Litigation Group attorney and lead counsel on the case. “Removing this vital information flouts that mandate. Our lawsuit seeks to hold them to their responsibilities to the people of this country.”
Several websites that provide guidance on prescribing PrEP for HIV and monitoring for the disease were further cited as key resources that U.S. physicians look to that have been taken down.
“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,” said Reshma Ramachandran, a member of the Doctors for America board of directors.
Doctors for America is alleging three counts against OPM, the CDC, HHS and the FDA. It alleges OPM’s actions have exceeded its legal authority; that both the CDC and HHS have violated the Paperwork Reduction Act and the Administrative Procedure Act (APA); and that the FDA also violated the APA.
The group is asking that a federal judge declare the agencies’ actions to be unlawful and that the agencies restore the webpages and datasets which have been taken down.
The Hill has reached out to the federal agencies named in the lawsuit for comment.
