Federal judge orders HHS, CDC, FDA to restore webpages, datasets

A federal judge on Tuesday ordered the Department of Health and Human Services, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration to restore webpages and datasets that had been altered, partly granting a request by a medical professional nonprofit. 

The order from Judge John D. Bates of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia required those agencies to return the webpages and datasets — including webpages for youth health, HIV information and contraceptive guidance for health providers — to the versions that existed on Jan. 30 by no later than Tuesday at 11:59 p.m. 

Bates also ordered those agencies to work with the organization that brought the suit, Doctors for America, to identify other resources that its members rely on to provide care, and restore those to their Jan. 30 version by Friday. 

Zachary R. Shelley, a lawyer with Public Citizen Litigation Group, which represents Doctors for America, told FedScoop on Wednesday that some of the webpages that were removed are back up and they look forward to the other pages being up in the next couple of days. The health agencies didn’t immediately respond to a FedScoop request for comment about the lawsuit compliance with the order.

Bates’s temporary restraining order is the latest action in a lawsuit Doctors for America filed Feb. 4 over the removal of information on multiple federal online health resources following an Office of Personnel Management memo. That OPM memo directed agencies to take down websites and media not in alignment with President Donald Trump’s executive order that sought to rid the federal government of “gender ideology.” 

That executive order defined gender ideology as including “the idea that there is a vast spectrum of genders that are disconnected from one’s sex.” It further defined men and women as the two options for “sex” and directed the term “gender” to be replaced with “sex” in federal policies and documents. 

OPM’s subsequent Jan. 29 memo then instructed agencies to “take down all outward facing media (websites, social media accounts, etc.) that inculcate or promote gender ideology.” According to FedScoop reporting, the CDC even temporarily took down its data site to comply with that order. 

In its complaint, Doctors for America said information removed by the health agencies was used daily by medical professionals to treat and diagnose patients and by researchers to conduct their work, such as carrying out clinical trials. The nonprofit argued that actions by the agencies were arbitrary and capricious under the Administrative Procedure Act, and that the CDC and HHS also violated the Paperwork Reduction Act.

Among the nonprofit’s allegations: OPM lacked the statutory authority to mandate the removal of the webpages in violation of the administrative law statute, CDC didn’t provide statutorily required “adequate notice” to change “significant information dissemination products” under the paperwork reduction law, and FDA removed webpages important for clinical trials, in violation of the APA. 

In addition to asking the court to order the agencies to restore the webpages and datasets, Doctors for America requested that the court enjoin CDC and HHS from removing or modifying webpages that are “significant information dissemination products” if they don’t provide adequate notice and if those changes “would deny the public timely and equitable access” to the agency’s information, among other things. The organization subsequently requested a temporary restraining order. 

“The removal of this information deprives researchers of access to information that is necessary for treating patients, for developing clinical studies that produce results that accurately reflect the effects treatments will have in clinical practice, and for developing practices and policies that protect the health of vulnerable populations and the country as a whole,” Doctors for America said in its complaint. 

In response, lawyers for the government argued that Doctors for America wasn’t entitled to a temporary restraining order, arguing that the organization failed to meet the bar of showing “irreparable harm.” 

The government noted that the nonprofit submitted declarations from two of its member doctors who said they were impacted by the changes, but said that those declarations weren’t enough to show the type of harm needed for such an order.

“Indeed, DFA’s own submissions show that much of this very information remains available through archival copies hosted by the Wayback Machine,” the government’s filing said. It suggested that at least one of the doctors alleging harm might bookmark the links from the complaint.