CDC webpages on sexual, gender identity, health equity removed

Greater than a dozen pages on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website related to sexual and gender identity, health equity, and other topics have been taken down, CNBC has learned. 

The CDC received a directive from the Health and Human Services Department, which oversees the agency, to remove certain webpages by the tip of the day Sept. 19, in line with an internal CDC email viewed by CNBC, which was sent that day to some employees whose work is said to the pages.

The pages include one about sexually transmitted infections and gay men, one other about healthy equity for individuals with disabilities, and extra fact sheets on asexuality and bisexuality. Some health equity advocates say removing such resources could create gaps in access to critical health information, especially for marginalized groups, and undermine efforts to advertise equitable care.

The removal of “critical materials from trusted government resources endangers the health of patients and the general public,” a spokesperson for the LBGT PA Caucus, a nonprofit promoting LGBTQ+ health-care equity, said in a press release.

“Stripping away resources on gender identity doesn’t erase the necessity, it only erodes trust, creates confusion, and places patients at greater risk,” the spokesperson said. “Clinicians and the communities they serve depend on accessible, accurate, and inclusive guidance to deliver secure and effective care.”

The e-mail didn’t provide details on why HHS directed the CDC to remove the pages or why it targeted certain topics. However the topics of a number of the resources taken down are longtime targets of the Trump administration, which has issued a series of executive actions that limit transgender and nonbinary people’s rights and rolled back efforts to extend diversity, equity and inclusion. 

In a press release, an HHS spokesperson said the “CDC continues to align their website with Administration priorities and Executive Orders.” The CDC directed CNBC to HHS for comment.

It is not the primary time that the administration has targeted health resources on federal agency web sites.

1000’s of pages across web sites for the CDC and Food and Drug Administration, amongst other agencies, were abruptly pulled down starting in late January under President Donald Trump’s executive order barring references to gender identity in federal policies and documents. In February, a federal judge ordered HHS, the CDC and FDA to temporarily restore public access to the pages while litigation moves forward. 

That very same judge ruled in July that the federal government unlawfully ordered the mass removal of health resources from federal sites and required agencies to review and restore the affected pages. Following that ruling, the Trump administration reported to the court on Sept. 19 that almost all agencies have finished restoring the pages, with 185 back in compliance and only 11 CDC pages still under review, in line with court documents. It’s unclear how lots of the pages taken down this month were at issue within the lawsuit.

It’s unclear which pages were still under review as of Sept. 19, and why the CDC took down more pages on that very same day following the ruling.

Attached to the interior CDC email was a spreadsheet of greater than a dozen pages that the agency said had been taken down as of Sept. 19. A separate spreadsheet compiled by agency employees and viewed by CNBC included an extra site that appears to be offline.

CNBC verified that the next pages at the moment are offline. The digital archive site Wayback Machine also shows after they were last lively. Several pages were online as recently as early September, in line with Wayback Machine, however it is unclear when the CDC officially removed all of them. 

Some pages listed on the spreadsheet attached to the interior CDC email are still online. That features a page that monitors laboratory-confirmed hospitalizations amongst children and adults related to respiratory syncytial virus.