Judge tells agencies to restore webpages and data removed after Trump’s executive order

▶ Follow live updates on President Donald Trump and his new administration. WASHINGTON — A federal judge on Tuesday ordered government agencies to restore public access to health-related webpages and datasets that they removed to comply with an executive order by President Donald Trump. The judge instructed the government to restore access to several webpages and datasets that the group identified as missing from websites and to identify others that also were taken down “without adequate notice or reasoned explanation.” On Jan. 20, his first day back in the White House, Trump signed an order for agencies to use the term “sex” and not “gender” in federal policies and documents. In response, the Office of Personnel Management’s acting director required agency heads to eliminate any programs and take down any websites that promote “gender ideology.” Doctors for America, represented by the Public Citizen Litigation Group, sued OPM, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Food and Drug Administration and the Department of Health and Human Services. The scrubbed material includes reports on HIV prevention, a CDC webpage for providing clinicians with guidance on reproductive health care and an FDA study on “sex differences in the clinical evaluation of medical products.” Removing important information from the CDC and FDA websites is delaying patient care, hampering research and hindering doctors’ ability to communicate with patients, the plaintiffs’ attorneys argued in a court filing.