The Trump administration has erased thousands of pages of public health data from government websites—information doctors rely on and taxpayers funded.
Over the last week, patients and healthcare providers have watched in horror as the Trump administration scrubbed government websites of information deemed to “inculcate or promote gender ideology.” In total, 8,000 pages were impacted, according to a New York Times analysis.
The list of impacted pages includes HHS’ HIPAA protections for reproductive rights; guidance on pharmacies’ obligation not to discriminate against patients seeking reproductive healthcare; CDC documents related to STI and STDs, intimate partner violence and LGBTQ rights; the entire site for NIH’s Office for Sexual and Gender Minority Research; and any page containing the word “abortion.” Since the executive order prompting these actions took effect, the CDC has not published its Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report—the first time in over 60 years.
While the sites and information contained on them flicker on and off, journalists, doctors, watchdogs and everyday citizens are resisting the top-down censorship by collecting the information they have saved or plucked from the internet archive into a series of digital databases. Jennifer Weiss-Wolf, a fellow Ms. editor and public health writer, has rounded these resources up in her latest piece at The Contrarian.
These efforts are admirable and will save lives. But it shouldn’t have come to this. Our country’s current lack of trusted centralized data and the erasure of public health information is a danger to democracy. “The health of the body politic—and the health of our bodies—depends on the free flow of research and information,” wrote Weiss-Wolf.
Dr. Sophia Yen, a doctor and reproductive health specialist, agrees. “They took down information that healthcare providers use on a daily basis to make sure you’re safe, to prevent the spread of disease. You just can’t play with people’s lives. You can’t play with people’s health.”
“We as individuals should not have to be recreating what we as taxpayers paid for,” she continued. “People are sharing these on Google Drive. But what if you don’t have access? What if you’re not connected? I’m in these academic groups on these email lists, but not every doctor is. And what if I have the old edition?”
Yen is the medical director and co-founder of Pandia Health, the only women-founded and women-led birth control and menopause telemedicine company.
She shared one example of a resource stripped from the CDC’s site: a chart that shows which birth control methods are safe to use based on a person’s health conditions.
“It is cruel and unusual to take away the medical eligibility criteria for birth control … yet as of 5 p.m. Eastern on Friday, doctors don’t know who it’s safe to write birth control prescriptions for in unless you memorize this chart or you have access to this chart.”
“You can’t expect me to memorize this. … It is incomprehensible to me that the government would take this down.”
Take Action
Yen urged readers:
Get on long-lasting birth control (if it works for your health and plans). “In terms of practical health, maximize your birth control,” said Yen. “Set it and forget it.”
She ranked these birth control options in order of their effectiveness:
- Implant
- Hormonal IUD
- Tubal ligation or vasectomy
- Ring
- Patch
- Pill
Get medication abortion pills—even before you need them.
Avoid using period tracker apps on your phone or computer. Opt for an analog version, like a paper calendar. And limit who you share your information with.
