Federal Health Agency Removes Data from Sites: Shots

In the direction of the Trump administration, the federal department of health and human services and its agencies cleans its websites on information and data on a wide range of topics – from youth health to LGBTQ+ rights to HIV.

More Web pages from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention with References For LGBTQ+ health was no longer available. ONE page From the HHS Office for Civil Rights, which outlined the rights of LGBTQ+ people in health care, were also away from Friday. The website of the National Institutes of Health’s Office for Sexual & Gender Minority Research Office disappeared. (Most of these pages could still be seen through Internet archive.)

The changes on CDC and NIH are examples of a broad push from Trump administration on gender questions under a executive order entitled “Defense of women from gender ideology extremism and recovery of biological truth to the federal government. “This order requires agencies throughout the government to stop offering” gender identity “as a choice of government forms and to complete the financing of” gender ideology. “

Another orderSigned by Trump, aims at “diversity, justice and inclusion” across the federal government.

On Friday, many pages that did not seem related to “gender” or “diversity” were also taken down, such as AtlasplusAn interactive tool from CDC with monitoring data on HIV, viral hepatitis, STDs and TB. Also disappeared: a page with basic information about HIV test. The CDC’s social vulnerability indexA tool that assesses society’s resilience in the event of a natural disaster was also taken down.

“Removal of HIV and LGBTQ-related resources from the Sites for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other health agencies are deeply about and creates a dangerous gap in scientific information and data to monitor and respond to disease outbreaks,” the contagious diseases society of America said in a statement. “Access to this information is crucial to infectious diseases and HIV health staff who love people with HIV and members of the LGBTQ community and are critical of the effort to end the HIV epidemic.”

Data on youth health is missing

A striking example of the vanishing information: CDC pulled the site that houses data collected by the nation’s largest monitoring program About health -related behavior among colleges.

Pages related to CDC’s Division of Adolescent and School Health, which manages the program, were also not available.

The monitoring system for youth risk behavior tracks key metrics on nutrition, physical activity, tobacco and drug use, sexual behavior and other areas. The program was created 35 years ago and includes a national study that researchers depend on to measure how behavior affects health and design prevention measures.

“That’s the way the nation understands Stephen RussellA sociologist at the University of Texas in Austin who studies the teenager’s health. “The disappearance of this data is great.”

CDC did not respond to a request for comment on why the site is offline and whether the action is temporary.

However, a person with knowledge of the decision says the agency staff should take down the site – which includes data on many other dimensions of health – to be in compliance With President Trump’s “defending women” executive order.

The order says agencies “should take quick actions to end all agency programs that use taxpayers’ money to promote or reflect gender ideology.” The order also says that agencies must take “down all outward media (sites, social media accounts, etc.) that indicate or promote gender ideology.” The deadline for action is at. 17 Friday.

Especially The latest study asked students about “transgender identity” for the first time. The study found that 3% of high school students themselves identified themselves as transient and another 2% were “uncertain.”

The published studies from previous years that still contain overviews of the survey results seems to be available In the archive of the CDCs Morbidity and mortality weekly report.

Scientists care about the future of teenager’s study

But the removal of the site and accompanying data has left researchers who wonder what will be of the program itself.

“I’m giving a speech today where I have to mention some of the latest data on mental health, ”said Bonnie Halpern-FelsherA developmental psychologist at Stanford University, “But is this bigger than just the site down? Do they stop the data collection? Do they stop reporting? “

The results form how schools and communities make decisions about evidence -based programs.

Russell says much of the data about the crisis in the youth’s mental health-alerting increases in the number of adolescents reporting depression or self-harmed behavior as a suicide coming from this study.

“So if this data disappears, we don’t have any information about what’s going on with our children,” he says.