Washington state groups sue Trump administration over sweeping public health data erasures
Three Washington state groups that represent health care workers have joined a lawsuit against the Trump administration over the sweeping deletion of federal public health data, calling the removals “arbitrary, capricious, and unreasoned.”
Plaintiffs say the erasures have caused irreparable harm to health care systems, which rely on that data to respond to patient needs and public health matters.
“The deletion of these resources has impeded the abilities of clinicians to care for their patients, of researchers to advance groundbreaking medical breakthroughs, of public health officials to track emerging disease outbreaks, and of members of the public to learn more about their health,” the lawsuit, filed Tuesday in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington, states.
“These executive-ordered website deletions were driven by ideology, not by science or evidence,” said Dr. John Bramhall, president of the Washington State Medical Association — a plaintiff in the lawsuit — in a press release.
The Washington State Nursing Association and the Washington Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics are among the nine plaintiffs asking the court to compel the Trump administration to restore the missing data and halt any further removals.
The lawsuit points to an analysis published by The New York Times in February that found more than 8,000 federal webpages had been taken offline, as agencies scrambled to comply with President Donald Trump’s executive orders targeting diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives. Among those online removals was over 3,000 pages worth of information from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s website.
While some of those online resources have been restored in response to public pressure, the lawsuit says many of them remain fragmented and “there has been significant uncertainty about the content and quality” of that which has been restored.
Dr. Beth Ebel, president of the Washington Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics, said Tuesday that fellow pediatricians have been “startled” to find federal guidance on highly effective medications and vaccinations, as well as data on things like new injury and poison risks and the health of kids in school remain wiped online.
Other data that has been scrubbed from federal websites include those on pregnancy risks, opioid-use disorder, and the AIDS epidemic, among others.
“Families rely upon pediatricians to provide the best advice for their children, and pediatricians need access to critical data to guide their care and do our jobs,” Ebel said in Tuesday’s news release.
