A federal judge Tuesday directed the restoration of web pages and data regarding HIV and AIDS, assisted reproductive technologies, and health risks for youth on sites maintained by the Department of Health and Human Services, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Food and Drug Administration. The content had been removed to comply with Donald Trump’s executive order on "gender ideology."
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Judge John Bates of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia issued a temporary restraining order in response to a request from the nonprofit Doctors for America, which argued its members depend on the affected websites for treating patients and conducting research. The organization claimed that the Department of Health and Human Services and its agencies, including the CDC and the FDA, violated federal law by taking down the information.
Bates determined that Doctors for America was likely to succeed in its lawsuit claiming that HHS, the CDC, and the FDA acted unlawfully when they removed medical data from publicly accessible websites. The suit is still pending.
“It bears emphasizing who ultimately bears the harm of defendants' actions: everyday Americans, and most acutely, underprivileged Americans, seeking healthcare," hewrote in his opinion. Citing two doctors declarations’ that were filed in the case, Bates said if they "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. The public thus has a strong interest in avoiding these serious injuries to the public health.”
His order instructed the agencies to restore the pages to their websites by 11:59 pm Tuesday after holding a hearing on the case that Monday. The pages appear to have been restored.
Bates, who was appointed by President George W. Bush, recently declined to block Elon Musk’s government cost-cutting department from accessing the U.S. Department of Labor’s systems. That decision came in response to a lawsuit from government employee unions challenging the department’s access. He said he had concerns about Musk's access, but he found that the unions failed to show that any member had been harmed, so they did not have standing to challenge the access.
The executive order driving the HHS, CDC, and FDA case was signed by Trump on his first day in office and stated that the U.S. recognizes only two sexes — male and female — and directed federal agencies to eliminate “all statements, policies, regulations, forms, communications, or other internal and external messages that promote or otherwise inculcate gender ideology.”
Days later, the Office of Personnel Management issued a memorandum instructing all agencies to remove by 5 p.m. on January 31 any websites, social media accounts, or other public-facing content that “inculcate or promote gender ideology.” In response, the CDC and FDA took down multiple web pages and data sets, including medical guidance for treating sexually transmitted infections and guidance for adult immunizations.
While some websites were modified to align with Trump’s directive and allowed to remain online, other resources — such as data from the CDC’s Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System — were removed entirely. The agency posted a notice on its main website stating that it was “being modified to comply with President Trump’s executive orders.” The Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System is back online, albeit with the modification notice.
Doctors for America filed its lawsuit against the HHS, the CDC, and the FDA on February 4, alleging that the agencies violated federal law by bypassing required rulemaking procedures and failing to ensure the public has “timely and equitable access” to government information.
The organization argued in court filings that its members rely on the removed data to provide medical treatment, conduct research, and guide public health responses on issues such as youth risk behaviors, adolescent health, and HIV. It highlighted specific cases where physicians have already faced challenges due to the missing resources. One Chicago-based doctor who works at a clinic serving low-income immigrant families was unable to access CDC guidance on responding to a chlamydia outbreak at a local high school and implementing STI testing and prevention measures. Another doctor, a researcher at the Yale School of Medicine, said in a declaration that she lost her access to CDC resources on treatment and prescription protocols.
Doctors for America was founded in 2008 by Vivek Murthy, who served as U.S. surgeon general under Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden; Mandy Cohen, later CDC director under Biden; and Alice Chen, now a professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, medical school.
“These doctors’ time and effort are valuable, scarce resources, and being forced to spend them elsewhere makes their jobs harder and their treatment less effective,” Bates wrote.
He found that the agencies could easily restore the missing web pages while working on updating them, as the information had been publicly available for years.
“There is nothing in either the OPM memorandum or the record, and indeed defendants proffered no information at the hearing, to suggest the restoration of the removed web pages would pose a burden on the agencies’ ability to engage in their work,” he wrote. "Similarly, there is no information to suggest that restoring public access would even interfere with the agencies' ongoing efforts to conform those resources with the president's executive orders."
Bates’s ruling comes as Trump’s administration faces a string of legal setbacks over its policies. On Monday alone, five judges issued rulings favoring challenges to Trump’s directives on birthright citizenship, a freeze on federal funding, cuts to how medical research grants are funded, and his deferred resignation program.
