Purging federal health agency websites of vital information is disrupting health care and medical research

\By Will Collette

Here's a partial list of forbidden terms

Here are two interesting articles covering the impact of the Trump regime to strip federal websites of content that might somehow annoy Trump or the MAGA people. 

In some instances, whole reports are being pulled to review them and censor out any references to transgender, LGBT health issues and a host of other subjects that Trump wants to ignore. See the list at left.

These two articles describe what information is being removed and what medical researchers are doing to try to cope with this sledgehammer censorship assault.

The first article is from the University of Minnesota's Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy (CIDRAP; "SID-wrap") 

The second article is from the activist site Truthout and describes active measures underway to mitigate the dangers to public health and safety created by this blackout. 

Here's the first article. I recommend you read both.

Removal of pages from CDC website brings confusion, dismay

Chris Dall, MA

Several pages on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) website remain offline amid a move by the Trump administration to remove all language related to gender identity and LGBTQ issues from government communications.

According to social media posts from researchers and journalists, pages on the CDC website started to disappear late last week, with searches producing the message "The page you're looking for was not found." Among the many pages that remain down are Health Disparities Among LQBTQ Youth, Interim Clinical Considerations for Use of Vaccine for Mpox Prevention, and Fast Facts: HIV and Transgender People.

Pages containing data from the CDC's Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System are also unavailable, as is the Health Equity Guiding Principles for Inclusive Communication page. A page containing vaccine recommendations and guidelines from the CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) was also unavailable for a time late last week but is now back online.

The moves are linked to an executive order issued by the Trump administration that stated the federal government will only recognize an individual's "immutable biological classification" as either male or female and that gender identity cannot be recognized as a replacement for sex. The order calls for all agencies to "remove all statements, policies, regulations, forms, communications, or other internal and external messages that promote or otherwise inculcate gender ideology, and shall cease issuing such statements, policies, regulations, forms, communications or other messages."

A subsequent memo from the Office of Personnel Management called on the heads and acting heads of departments and agencies to "Take down all outward facing media (websites, social media accounts, etc.) that inculcate or promote gender ideology" by 5 pm, January 31.

Over the weekend, a note was added to the CDC website that states, "CDC's website is being modified to comply with President Trump's Executive Orders."

Scientists push back

In a joint statement, the heads of the Infectious Diseases Society of America and the HIV Medicine Association said the removal of HIV- and LGBTQ-related resources from the CDC's website "is deeply concerning and creates a dangerous gap in scientific information and data to monitor and respond to disease outbreaks."

"Access to this information is crucial for infectious diseases and HIV health care professionals who care for people with HIV and members of the LGBTQ community and is critical to efforts to end the HIV epidemic," said IDSA President Tina Tan, MD, and HIVMA Chair Colleen Kelley, MD, MPH. 

"This is especially important as diseases such as HIV, mpox, sexually transmitted infections and other illnesses threaten public health and impact the entire population. Timely and accurate information from the CDC guides clinical practice and policies, which are essential for controlling infections and safeguarding health."

The Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America, in a message shared in an email and on social media, said it joins IDSA in calling for transparency and the protection of science-driven public health policies.

"The removal of HIV- and LGBTQ-related resources from the websites of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other health agencies takes us further away from making all America healthy," the organization said. "Removing this guidance creates a critical gap in scientific information and puts these patients at risk as it relates to infection prevention and appropriate antibiotic use."

Mass retraction of papers submitted to journals

In related news, Jeremy Faust, MD, reported in his Inside Medicine newsletter on Substack that the CDC has instructed its scientists to retract or pause the publication of any research manuscript being considered by any medical or scientific journal.

According to a CDC email reviewed by Faust, the order was to ensure that those manuscripts do not include now-forbidden terms, such as "gender, transgender, pregnant person or pregnant people, LGBTQ, transsexual, nonbinary, assigned male or female at birth, and biologically male or biologically female."

Faust reports the order applies to previously submitted manuscripts under consideration and those accepted but not yet published.

Meanwhile, it's unclear if the pause on communications from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and all agencies within the department, including the CDC, Food and Drug Administration, and the National Institutes of Health, remains in effect. A January 21 memo from HHS Acting Secretary Dorothy Fink, MD, stated the pause was through February 1. 

Among the many publications affected by the pause is the CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, which includes case reports on infectious disease outbreaks and epidemiologic studies. Traditionally published weekly, MMWR has not been issued for the past 2 weeks. 

Also affected are the CDC Health Alert Network (HAN) advisories, which inform clinicians and public health officials about urgent public health issues. The last HAN advisory was posted on January 16.

In response to an email from CIDRAP News asking whether the pause was still in effect, an HHS spokesperson said the agency has approved numerous communications related to critical health and safety needs and "will continue to do so." 

"There are several types of external communications that are no longer subject to the pause," said Andrew Nixon, HHS director of communications. "All HHS divisions have been given clear guidance on how to seek approval for any other type of mass communication." 

Doctors Rush to Access CDC Archives After Website Is Purged on Trump’s Orders

Doctors are struggling to access public health information as the Trump administration censors federal agency websites.

By Mike Ludwig , Truthout

The fallout from Donald Trump’s “shock and awe” campaign to bend the federal government to his will is becoming painfully apparent. Doctors and advocates report that that the slew of new executive orders are already causing disruptions in treatment, all while Republicans in Congress consider spending cuts that analysts say could strip coverage for millions and spin the health system into further disarray.

Margaret Russell, a family physician and HIV specialist at a clinic in Chicago, was in the middle of seeing patients on Friday when she checked the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) website for clinical guidelines doctors routinely reference, only to find that the specific page she was looking for had been taken down.

For the past week, agencies across the federal government have been racing to comply with Trump’s vague executive orders targeting “diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI)” and “gender ideology.” Russell and her colleagues quickly realized that the most up-to-date information on HIV prevention medication, sexually transmitted infection (STI) testing, contraception, childhood vaccination schedules, and more had been scrubbed from the CDC website. Like others across the country, the health workers scrambled to take screenshots of archived versions of the webpages before they could be censored as well.

“I cannot possibly overstate how bad this is,” Russell said in an interview.

Russell said a colleague reached out on Saturday with a question about a pregnant patient with an inconclusive syphilis screening. The U.S. is experiencing an alarming spike in cases of syphilis, an STI that is curable but requires treatment, but pregnancy is known to cause false positives in some tests.

Russell said she would usually consult the latest CDC guidelines to confirm next steps, but the section had been censored along with other information on serious STI infections in pregnant patients and newborns.

While the CDC reportedly restored some resources to its website after public outcry over Trump’s purge of content, a review by Truthout confirmed that pages providing information for the LGBTQ community and guidelines for the HIV prevention medication PrEP were down on January 31. A message on the CDC website now says modifications are being made to “comply” with Trump’s executive orders.

“It’s not that there are no other ways to access this information, but knowing that there is a reliable, trustworthy, central repository for these types of medical guidelines is really critical to our ability to provide good, safe, efficient care,” Russell said.

“I promise you: You want your doctor to be able to access the accurate, updated, complete medical information.”

Russell said the CDC website was also a reliable place to direct patients because the agency’s information must remain scientifically sound to maintain the public’s trust. That’s no longer the case. Doctors can now expect CDC guidelines to be edited based on the political preferences of whoever is in power, which means the nation’s top public health agency will no longer be a trustworthy source for the most up to date information on diseases and standards of care, Russell said.

Medical science and the latest threats to public health are always evolving, Russell said, so the archived versions of CDC webpages her colleagues “salvaged” the other day are not a long-term solution.

“I think a lot of people don’t believe this impacts them, but I promise you: You want your doctor to be able to access the accurate, updated, complete medical information,” Russell said. “And you don’t want to live in a community where people aren’t receiving appropriate treatment for infections that can be passed on to others.”

Trump and his allies have railed against perceived censorship of conservatives. But Robert Weissman, co-president of the watchdog Public Citizen, points out that censoring government websites that provide fact-based information on contraception and STI prevention shows what little value is placed on the First Amendment.

“Rather, they want to control people’s access to information as part of a dual agenda of advancing authoritarianism and an extremist, hateful cultural agenda,” Weissman said in a statement on Friday. “The Trumpian Thought Police are denying Americans fact-based information and endangering people’s health and well-being.”

The scrubbing of public health websites is just one way in which the new administration is upending public health. Trump’s nominee to run the Department of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., has spread dangerous misinformation about vaccines and flubbed questions about major federal health programs during confirmation hearings. Protests are erupting outside hospitals as providers curb gender-affirming care for teenagers to comply with Trump’s executive orders. And the chaos over Trump’s initial proposed funding freeze, which has been paused by a judge multiple times, still leaves health researchers and providers concerned about the potential loss in funding.

By further complicating an already dysfunctional health care system, Trump and his allies may be playing with fire. Polls show that besides the economy, health care remains the top concern for voters who are frustrated by spiraling costs and hostile insurance companies that are dysfunctional by design. The depth of the public’s anger was on display in December when the internet erupted in applause following the brazen assassination of a wealthy CEO at UnitedHealthcare, a top U.S. health insurer.

However, this has not prevented Republicans in Congress from considering deep cuts to programs that make health care affordable for millions of people.

As they search for ways to pay for an extension of Trump’s 2017 tax cuts which would pad the pockets of the wealthiest taxpayers without adding to the deficit, Republicans are considering massive cuts to federal health care spending. House Speaker Mike Johnson confirmed on Monday that the GOP is determined to extend the tax cuts without blowing a “hole in the deficit” during an interview on Fox News. Trump is “doing a lot by executive authority, which we applaud,” Johnson said, “but we’re going to follow that up and really reinforce what he’s doing, the agenda, through legislation.”

Kobie Christian, a spokesperson for the economic justice group Unrig Our Economy, said Johnson is determined to make working people foot the bill for millionaires and billionaires.

“Even as Americans continue to face higher prices nationwide, Republicans insist on further increasing costs for regular people by imposing tariffs on everyday items and cutting federal funding for essential programs such as health care and child care to pay for billionaires’ tax breaks,” Christian said in an email on Monday.

A GOP proposal under consideration would cut $2.3 trillion in funding over 10 years from Medicaid, which provides health insurance for lower-income people and people with disabilities. There are multiple ways to make the cuts, including by capping the amount of funding available to states or imposing work requirements that do not increase employment but force people out of the program with red tape.

Republicans may also reduce spending by allowing subsidies for the Affordable Care Act (ACA) marketplace health plans to expire, which would cause insurance costs for millions of people to skyrocket and leave an average 3.8 million more people without insurance each year, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. In 2024, 56 percent of ACA marketplace enrollees lived in congressional districts represented by Republicans, and 76 percent of enrollees are in states won by Trump.

Trump has been silent about the proposed cuts to Medicaid and the ACA marketplace, but he has said that Medicare, Social Security and the defense budget should be spared cuts, which leaves Republicans in Congress with few other options besides slashing programs that provide health care to working-class people, including some of their own supporters. Despite Trump’s self-assured attacks on the system, health care will continue to raise vexing questions for the GOP moving forward.

Mike Ludwig  is a staff reporter at Truthout based in New Orleans. He is also the writer and host of “Climate Front Lines,” a podcast about the people, places and ecosystems on the front lines of the climate crisis. Follow him on Twitter: @ludwig_mike.