The Trump administration faced yet another legal roadblock on Tuesday after a federal judge ordered health agencies to restore public health webpages that were scrubbed last month on the orders of President Donald Trump.
U.S. District Judge John Bates in Washington, D.C. granted a temporary restraining order sought by the advocacy group Doctors for America, which said the purging of federal webpages containing crucial health information has hampered their ability to serve patients.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Department of Health and Human Services, and Food and Drug Administration abruptly took down webpages and datasets about HIV, AIDS, and COVID-19 to comply with a Trump administration memo combating so-called “gender ideology.”
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The Office of Personnel Management had instructed agencies to “take down all outward facing media (websites, social media accounts, etc.) that inculcate or promote gender ideology” by Jan. 31 at 5 p.m.
“By removing long relied upon medical resources without explanation, it is likely that each agency failed to ‘examine the relevant data and articulate a satisfactory explanation for its action,’” Bates wrote in his decision.
Citing the experiences of its members, Doctors for America argued that the webpage deletions caused harm to physicians and patients.
One doctor serving a Chicago high school regularly relies on the CDC’s online resources for sexually transmitted diseases, the group said. The school “recently had an outbreak of Chlamydia,” and now that she is “[w]ithout t[he] crucial CDC resources,” she is “not able to do [her] job to help address this urgent situation.”
“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 said. “The public thus has a strong interest in avoiding these serious injuries to the public health.”
Trump’s blitz of executive orders has faced widespread pushback from the courts. Judges have temporarily blocked or slowed the administration’s bids to end birthright citizenship, freeze federal spending, and offer buyouts to federal workers, among others.
Vice President JD Vance claimed over the weekend that “judges aren’t allowed to control the executive’s legitimate power,” prompting even the most loyal MAGA lawmakers to caution the Trump administration against defying court orders.
