WASHINGTON — A federal judge ordered the FDA and CDC on Tuesday to restore access to webpages taken down last month in accordance with an executive order requiring government agencies to scrub terms related to “gender ideology.”
U.S. District Judge John Bates ordered the government to restore the websites, which provided data and information for healthcare providers, while he considers a challenge from an industry group representing thousands of physicians across the country. Bates said the government had shown no evidence it would be harmed by the temporary restraining order, while “everyday Americans, and and most acutely, underprivileged Americas,” were likely to be hurt.
“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,” Bates wrote in his opinion. “The public thus has a strong interest in avoiding these serious injuries to the public health.”
Last week, the non-partisan not-for-profit Doctors for America (DFA) filed a lawsuit alleging the FDA, CDC, Office of Personnel Management and the Department of Health and Human Services had violated federal law by abruptly taking down public data sets and webpages their members used every day to treat patients.
“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,” attorneys for DFA wrote.
According to the complaint, the affected websites included guides for health care providers on prescribing contraceptives and pre-exposure prophylaxis – better known as PrEp – for HIV prevention and “The Environmental Justice Index,” which helped identify communities at elevated risk from natural disasters so first responders could better plan ahead for emergencies.
The websites were taken down on Jan. 31 two days after Charles Ezell, the acting director of the Office of Personnel Management, issued a memo requiring agency heads to terminate any programs and take down all outward facing websites and social media accounts that “promote or inculcate gender ideology.”
READ MORE | Government webpages go dark to comply with Trump orders. Here’s a full list
Ezell’s memo represented the implementation of an executive order signed by President Donald Trump on his first day in office titled “Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government.” Among other elements, the order pronounced that the federal government would only recognize two sexes, male and female, and ordered agencies to replace the word “gender” with “sex” in policies and documents.
The Trump administration has faced a torrent of lawsuits in its first few weeks as it attempts to implement its agenda of drastic cuts to government spending and consolidation of power in the White House. Just after DFA finished making its arguments on Monday, a federal judge heard a complaint from the head of the U.S. Office of Special Counsel, the agency charged with enforcing federal whistleblower protections, who says he was unlawfully fired by Trump. Judges in D.C. have also heard lawsuits seeking to stop a federal funding freeze ordered by the Office of Management and Budget, block enforcement of an executive order requiring transgender women in federal prison to be transferred to men’s facilities and prevent the release of a list of names of FBI agents who worked on the Jan. 6 and Mar-a-Lago investigations.
This is a developing story and will be updated.