CDC web pages on sexual identity, health equity deleted

More than a dozen pages on the website of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention linked to sexual and sex, equity and other subjects have been lowered, learned CNBC.

The CDC received a directive from the Department of Health and Social Services, which oversees the agency, to remove certain web pages by the end of the day on September 19, according to an e-mail of the internal CDC targeted by CNBC, which was sent that day to certain employees whose work is linked to the pages.

The pages include one on sexually transmitted infections and gay men, another on healthy equity for disabled people and additional information sheets on asexuality and bisexuality. Some health capital defenders claim that the abolition of these resources could create gaps in access to critical health information, especially for marginalized groups and undermine efforts to promote fair care.

The abolition of “critical materials of government resources of trust endangers the health of patients and the public”, a spokesperson for the Caucus of LBGT PA, a non-profit organization promoting the equity of LGBTQ +health care, in a press release.

“The deactivation of resources on gender identity does not break the need, it only erodes confidence, creates confusion and puts patients more at risk,” said the spokesperson. “Clinicians and communities they serve depend on accessible, precise and inclusive advice to provide safe and effective care.”

The email did not provide details on the reasons why HHS ordered the CDC to delete the pages or why it targeted certain subjects. But the subjects of some of the deleted resources are long -standing objectives of the Trump administration, which has published a series of executive actions that limit the rights of transgender and non -binary people and have returned efforts to increase diversity, equity and inclusion.

In a statement, an HHS spokesperson said that “the CDC continues to align its website with administration priorities and decrees”. The CDC directed CNBC to HHS to comment.

This is not the first time that the administration has targeted health resources on federal agencies.

Thousands of pages on websites for the CDC and the Food and Drug Administration, among other agencies, were suddenly lowered from the end of January under the executive order of President Donald Trump, prohibiting references to gender identity in federal policies and documents. In February, a federal judge ordered the HHS, the CDC and the FDA to temporarily restore public access to the pages while the dispute progresses.

The same judge judged in July that the government illegally ordered the mass elimination of the health resources of federal sites and forced agencies to examine and restore the affected pages. Following this decision, the Trump administration reported to the court on September 19 that most agencies had finished restoring the pages, with 185 in accordance and only 11 CDC pages are still being examined,, According to court documents. We do not know how many pages deleted this month were involved in the trial.

We do not know what pages were still being examined on September 19, and why the CDC eliminated more pages the same day after the decision.

Attached to the internal e-mail of the CDC was a spreadsheet of more than a dozen pages which, according to the agency, had been withdrawn on September 19. A separate spreadsheet compiled by agency employees and viewed by CNBC included an additional site that seems to be offline.

CNBC has verified that the following pages are now offline. The Wayback machine of the digital archive site also shows the last activity. Several pages were online also recently at the beginning of September, according to Wayback Machine, but we do not know when the CDC officially deleted all.

Certain pages listed on the calculation sheet attached to the internal e-mail of the CDC are still online. This includes a page that monitors hospitalizations confirmed by the laboratory in children and adults associated with the syncytial respiratory virus.