A federal judge on Tuesday ordered the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to restore government webpages that were taken down after President Donald Trump issued an executive order barring gender ideology from federal agencies.
U.S. District Judge John Bates, appointed by former President George W. Bush, granted a temporary restraining order after a group called Doctors for America (DFA) filed a legal complaint arguing that it prevents its members from using the information on the webpages to treat patients and conduct research.
The complaint references Trump’s executive order, which says, “It is the policy of the United States to recognize two sexes, male and female,” and that “Agencies shall remove all statements, policies, regulations, forms, communications, or other internal and external messages that promote or otherwise inculcate gender ideology, and shall cease issuing such statements, policies, regulations, forms, communications, or other messages.”
The plaintiffs argue that this order violates the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) by being “arbitrary and capricious.” They further contend that Doctors for America members “relied on [these] pages that related to current evidence and guidelines for providing clinical care, provided information to clinician-investigators on conducting clinical trials, and contained data that informed targeted public-health interventions.”
The document includes a statement from Dr. Reshma Ramachandran, who explained that taking down these webpages “has made it more difficult and time-consuming to provide updated recommendations and prescribe appropriate options to patients.”
Judge Bates determined that DFA suffered direct harm by losing access to the information provided on the webpages and argued that the Trump administration had failed to provide an adequate explanation for removing them. From the ruling:
By removing long relied upon medical resources without explanation, it is likely that each agency failed to ‘examine the relevant data and articulate a satisfactory explanation for its action.’ Medical providers’ widespread and routine reliance on information is an identified and adequately alleged reliance interest.
The judge also insisted that “Restoring these materials is a public health imperative. Without them, healthcare providers and researchers are left without up-to-date recommendations on managing infectious diseases, public health threats, essential preventive care, and chronic conditions.”
The DFA argued that the removed pages provided information that its doctors and researchers used to track diseases and analyze health trends. This data included information on “youth risk behaviors, adolescent and school health, social vulnerability and environmental justice, HIV, contraception, assisted reproductive technologies, and how to develop clinical trials,” according to the complaint.
DFA members indicated that removing the webpages hampered their ability to respond to time-sensitive health issues, such as a Chlamydia outbreak in a Chicago high school where medical professionals required immediate access to CDC guidance.
Dr. Stephanie Liou noted in the filing that she “regularly” relies on the CDC’s STD prevention guidelines “to respond to outbreaks and recommend best practices for treatment and prevention.” She argued that without these resources, she has been “unable to properly advise my patients, delaying critical interventions.”
Judge Bates has come under fire after his ruling from those arguing that he is biased against the president. They pointed out that his wife is the founder of a non-governmental organization (NGO) that received funding from USAID.
USAID: The swamp is deep. One of the activist judges blocking Trump's agenda, Judge John Bates, is married to the founder of a USAID-funded NGO. Carol Rhees is a Democrat lawyer who started Hope for Children in Ethiopia a long-time USAID grant recipient.
— @amuse (@amuse) February 12, 2025
h/t @pepesgrandma pic.twitter.com/i51Q05dtRC
This lawsuit is one of several that leftist groups have filed challenging Trump’s executive orders under the Administrative Procedures Act.
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