Trump administration ordered to restore public health data online

A federal judge in Washington ordered the Trump administration to immediately restore certain public health information removed from websites in recent days that doctors and researchers said they needed to treat patients and track disease outbreaks in real time. 

US District Judge John Bates on Tuesday issued a temporary restraining order after determining that the membership group Doctors for America, which sued last week, was likely to succeed in arguing that federal agencies failed to provide advance notice or engage in “reasoned decision making” as required by US law. He also said the loss of data access risked public health now.

“It bears emphasizing who ultimately bears the harm of defendants’ actions: everyday Americans, and most acutely, underprivileged Americans, seeking healthcare,” Bates wrote. “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.”

It’s the latest in a string of court orders to temporarily pause sweeping executive actions by President Donald Trump during his first three weeks in office to upend the operations of federal agencies. In some cases, the actions have scaled back or halted federal government programs.

A spokesperson for the US Justice Department didn’t immediately return a request for comment.

Zach Shelley, an attorney with Public Citizen Litigation Group, which is representing the doctors organization, said in a statement that the order “puts a stop, at least temporarily, to the irrational removal of vital health information from public access.”

Bates’ order doesn’t apply to all websites and government-produced data. It affects only the ones identified by Doctors for America. The organization, which has been critical of the administration’s handling of public health issues, said the information included data on teen and school-based health, maps to identify communities at risk from natural disasters and monitoring HIV diagnoses and treatment, as well as guidance on contraception access and how to account for sex differences and diversity in clinical studies.

Bates highlighted first-person accounts that medical providers filed with the court, such as a Chicago doctor who said she needed access to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to help manage a sexually transmitted infection outbreak at a high school she serves, and a clinical researcher who treats patients and needs timely information on contraception options while those visits are taking place. 

The Office of Personnel Management had ordered the health data taken down to comply with a Trump executive order that would end government programs promoting what he called “gender ideology,” according to the complaint.

The case is Doctors for America v. Office of Personnel Management, 25-cv-322, US District Court, District of Columbia (Washington).

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