Federal Administration’s illegal attempt to remove access to vital public health information endangers the health of all Americans
SAN FRANCISCO (February 19, 2025) — San Francisco City Attorney David Chiu announced today that the City and County of San Francisco has joined a lawsuit led by Doctors for America, represented by Public Citizen Litigation Group, to preserve access to essential public health data that medical professionals rely on to treat patients, and that local health departments use to protect communities from infectious disease and public health threats. The lawsuit was already successful in temporarily blocking the Trump Administration’s illegal attempt to remove huge amounts of public health information and data from federal agency websites.
The Administration’s unlawful attempt to erase decades of valuable public health information stems from Donald Trump’s anti-trans executive orders. The webpages and datasets that were removed are used by public health officials and providers to monitor and combat infectious diseases and public health threats. Additionally, some of the information removed is specific to treating conditions impacting youth, LGBTQ+ communities, and people seeking reproductive and fertility care.
“It is telling that the Trump Administration wants to block access to accurate public health information,” said City Attorney David Chiu. “Only someone who has built a political movement based on lies and propaganda would be afraid of the public having access to scientific information. Removing this information from agency websites puts us all in danger by making it more difficult to combat infectious diseases and public health threats. The Court has already said the Administration’s actions appear illegal, and San Francisco is joining the effort to preserve public health data and ensure health care providers have the tools they need to keep our communities healthy.”
“Removing access to vital federal health agency information puts lives at risk,” said Acting Director of Health Dr. Naveena Bobba. “Effective public health requires data and information sharing at all levels, especially from our federal partners, in order to provide evidence-based health care to our patients and respond to emerging public health threats. We will continue to provide health care services and information to clinical providers to protect public health and keep our communities in San Francisco safe. We thank our partners in the City Attorney’s Office for joining this fight to preserve access to essential health information.”
Background
On January 20, 2025, President Trump issued Executive Order 14168, entitled “Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government.” In response to the Executive Order, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) issued an unlawful memorandum nine days later directing agencies to take down webpages, social media content, and other outward facing media “that inculcate or promote gender ideology.”
On January 31, the Department of Health and Human Services and several of its component agencies, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), abruptly removed over 80,000 webpages and numerous datasets from their websites. Following the removal, the CDC posted a statement on its website declaring that the “website is being modified to comply with President Trump’s Executive Orders.”
Health professionals regularly use the information that had been removed to treat patients, conduct research, and inform public health responses to infectious diseases and public health threats. The information and datasets covered a range of subjects including youth risk behaviors, adolescent and school health, social vulnerability and environmental justice, HIV, contraception, fertility and assisted reproductive technologies, and how to develop clinical trials, including improving the inclusion of women and underrepresented populations. Much of the information has been publicly available on the health agency websites for years, with some webpages originating in the 1990s.
The treatment guidance and datasets removed from the websites are not just obscure, academic resources. They are vital resources used every day by health care providers to make real-time clinical decisions in hospitals, doctors’ offices, and emergency departments across the country.
In addition to treating physicians, local health departments like San Francisco’s Department of Public Health (SFDPH) use the webpages and datasets to conduct research, monitor public health threats, inform public health responses, and help operationalize on-the-ground treatment and interventions.
San Francisco is an international destination with millions of people traveling in and out of the City every year. It is crucial that SFDPH have accurate, up-to-date information on infectious diseases and public health threats. Local health departments must rely on the expertise and reach of a national agency like CDC, which has a global view of emerging infectious diseases in other parts of the country and world.
On February 4, Doctors for America, represented by Public Citizen Litigation Group, brought a lawsuit challenging the unlawful OPM memo and the removal of the webpages and datasets. The lawsuit argued that the removal of the webpages and datasets violated several federal laws and irreparably harmed health care professionals. Plaintiffs filed a motion for a temporary restraining order (TRO), which San Francisco public health officials supported by submitting declarations to the Court.
“These federal agencies exist to serve the American people by protecting public health,” said Zach Shelley, attorney at Public Citizen Litigation Group. “Removing this vital information flouts that mandate. Our lawsuit seeks to hold them to their responsibilities to the people of this country.”
“Like many of my colleagues across the country, I am a doctor who takes care of patients and a researcher who uses publicly available data to advance solutions to improve our patients’ health and health care. Removing information and data across public health agency websites that help doctors better understand our patients and their communities to provide them the best care possible only serves to do the opposite,” said Dr. Reshma Ramachandran, member of the board of directors for Doctors for America. “Without full and permanent restoration of these resources, the administration is only ensuring that they make Americans more unhealthy and more unsafe again.”
On February 11, U.S. District Court Judge John D. Bates, granted the request for a TRO, required Defendants to restore webpages and datasets that were unlawfully removed from their websites, and enjoined CDC, FDA, and HHS from removing or substantially modifying other webpages and datasets.
The Court found Defendants’ actions likely violate the Administrative Procedure Act and the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995. In particular, it cited the declarations of SFDPH doctors in describing the real world harm that had occurred as a result of the removal of public health information:
“Take Stephanie Cohen, Director of the STI/HIV Prevention Section of the San Francisco Department of Public Health. Dr. Cohen explains that her Department—and ‘the entire public health community’—relies on CDC resources and has been ‘severely impacted’ by their sudden removal. Without these resources, doctors risk failing to provide ‘evidence-based clinical care,’ and local health departments are hindered in their ability to prepare for local and global disease outbreaks.
Accordingly, the disappearance of these resources has not gone unnoticed: Dr. Cohen began receiving ‘messages from providers in San Francisco and throughout the United States asking [her] if [she] had downloaded PDFs to share’ ‘[i]mmediately’ after the websites went down. Without these important resources, her colleagues ‘were unsure how to proceed with the usual, standard of care practice.’”
San Francisco joined the lawsuit in an amended complaint filed yesterday and brings the perspectives of local public health departments and public health officials to the effort to preserve public access to essential health information.
A copy of the amended complaint can be found here. The case is Doctors for America v. Office of Personnel Management, et al., U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, Case No. 25-cv-322.
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