In The News: Removal of Online Health Resources ‘Dangerous’ to Public Health, Experts Say

In the wake of an executive order, Helio reports on the reaction by public health experts to the removal of online resources relating to HIV, STIs and other health topics. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was one of several government agencies that has removed pages from its websites relating to ‘gender ideology.’ The executive order was entitled, “Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government.”

The acting director of the Office of Personnel Management sent a memo to all federal agencies with instructions on complying with the executive order. It directed the end of all agency programs using money that addressed the matter. The CDC responded by removing pages with data, guidelines, and resources relating to topics that relating to HIV and other STIs, as well as mentions of transgender men and women.

At least 8,000 pages, roughly 3,000 of which were on the CDC site and included the entirety of the Target HIV site, had been taken down from government agency sites. In place of those missing pages was a statement that the respective page was being modified to comply with the executive order. The order extended to all publicly facing websites and social media. The respective agencies were given one week to come into compliance.

PIDS member Tina Tan is quoted from her statement, “The removal of HIV- and LGBTQ-related resources from the websites of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other health agencies is deeply concerning and creates a dangerous gap in scientific information and data to monitor and respond to disease outbreaks. Access to this information is crucial for infectious diseases and HIV health care professionals who care for people with HIV and members of the LGBTQ community and is critical to efforts to end the HIV epidemic.”