The Vermont Medical Society scored a legal victory Wednesday against the Trump administration that will restore public health data to federal websites.
The medical society was one of nine organizations that sued the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in May after it deleted scientific data related to LGBTQ+ health, reproductive care, vaccines, HIV/AIDS and other health equity issues.
The purge followed an anti-trans executive order signed by President Donald Trump that sought to “restore biological truth” to government by removing all materials “that promote or otherwise inculcate gender ideology.”
We did already hear about medical practice getting harder and also patients having less trust in the data or less trust in the recommendations that their doctors are making.Jessa Barnard, Vermont Medical Society
The Vermont Medical Society and the eight other plaintiffs, including the Washington State Medical Association and National LGBT Cancer Network, announced a settlement with the Department of Health and Human Services Wednesday in which the federal government has agreed to restore the deleted materials to the websites of agencies such as the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control.
Jessa Barnard, the medical society's executive director, said the organization joined the lawsuit after hearing concerns from Vermont doctors and physicians assistants.
“We reached out to our members … and asked, ‘Had it impacted them to have some of these websites taken down?’ And we heard back very clearly that it was having an impact,” Barnard said Wednesday.
Barnard said the deleted materials included raw data sets used by clinicians to inform patient care. She said it also included important guidance on care for specific populations.
“So one of them, for example, is called Supporting Care for Women with Opioid Disorder, or Supporting LGBTQ Youth, or FAQs on Mpox vaccines, so really helpful resources that clinicians might use with their patients,” she said.
Barnard said Vermont doctors began to see the effects soon after the information disappeared from government websites early this year.
“We did already hear about medical practice getting harder and also patients having less trust in the data or less trust in the recommendations that their doctors are making,” she said.
Barnard called the settlement “a great outcome.” But she said Vermont doctors remained concerned about guidance from the Centers for Disease Control that could impact access to the COVID vaccine this fall.
