Docs Turn to Archives as Federal Health Information Vanishes

As the Trump administration’s mandated scrubbing of information from federal health websites continues, physicians are finding once steadfast medical guidance to be unreliable or unavailable — even as some information comes back online.

Instead, they’re turning to archived sites and alternative sources hastily assembled by scientists, clinicians, and health advocates.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and other federal agencies have scrambled to remove references to health and gender equity, sexual orientation, HIV, contraception, and other vital clinical information, like vaccine uptake, to comply with executive orders mandating the removal of references to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), and gender-affirming care.

The CDC, for example, replaced 2024 sexually transmitted infections treatment guidelines with outdated 2021 guidelines, which use administration-preferred terms like “pregnant women” instead of “pregnant people.”

Guidance on the treatment of sexually transmitted infections or vaccination in pregnancy, as well as guidance about the appropriate provision of contraceptive options for patients with medical complications, also has been removed.

Some health websites, like Reproductiverights.gov, Disability.gov, CDC PLACES, and Office for Sexual & Gender Minority Research, have disappeared, along with decades of research.

“The removal of CDC guidance on multiple important clinical topics has the potential to negatively impact patient care,” said Brenna Hughes, MD, chair of the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine Committee on Infectious Diseases and Emerging Threats. “It will be important for clinicians to understand where they can access reliable clinical guidance during this time.”

“All changes to the HHS [US Department of Health and Human Services] website and HHS division websites are in accordance with President Trump’s January 20 Executive Orders, Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government and Ending Radical and Wasteful Government DEI Programs and Preferencing,” the CDC told Medscape Medical News in an emailed comment. “The Office of Personnel Management has provided initial guidance on both Executive Orders, and HHS and divisions are acting accordingly to execute.”

Federal officials also have instructed researchers to pull existing manuscripts under consideration or already accepted by peer journals and scrub any language referencing these and other key terms, according to a CDC email obtained by Jeremy Faust, MD, an emergency physician at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, who writes the Inside Medicine Substack. A federal official confirmed the email, Reuters reported.

Turning to the Archives

Clinicians can still access much of the data and research previously posted on CDC sites on websites including The Wayback Machine, operated by the nonprofit digital library Internet Archive, and the End of Term web archive, which preserves existing pages from prior administrations and is housed at the Internet Archive and the Library of Congress.

Yet many updates stop on or before January 31, and it’s not known whether any files will be refreshed going forward. It’s also not yet clear whether all clinical guidelines and protocols are undergoing changes to meet the new DEI and language requirements, but some clinicians aren’t waiting to find out.

Hughes suggested that clinicians turn to established clinical guidelines available from the Society for Maternal Fetal Medicine, the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology, the American Academy of Family Physicians, the Society for Family Planning, the Infectious Diseases Society of America, and the World Health Organization (WHO).

Medscape Medical News has created a preliminary list of alternative sources for health data and practice guidelines and will update it as more information become available.

CDC Web Pages and Datasets

Links To Archived Versions Of Every CDC.gov Page Available Pre-Purge, Charles Gaba, a health insurance analyst and founder of ACASignups.net

CDC datasets uploaded before January 28th, 2025, the Internet Archive

Practice Guidelines

General/Family Medicine

HIV and Infectious Disease

• Prescribing PrEP, a guide for healthcare providers, AIDS Education & Training Center
• AIDS institute Clinical Guidelines Program, New York State Department of Health (guidance on HIV/AIDS, Mpox, Substance use, PEP AND PREP, SEXUAL HEALTH, Prenatal care and more)
• HIV information for Health Providers, US Department of Veterans Affairs
• IDSA Practice Guidelines, Infectious Disease Society of America

Women’s Health and ContraceptionPediatricsMinority Health and Health EquityOther