Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, hereinafter playing cards Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. quietly removed a federal public health webpage that provided clear guidance on safer sex and harm reduction. Mpox. This deletion confirms concerns among people LGBTQ+ Health experts say the Trump administration is once again illegally removing medically vetted information related to the queer community from government websites.
As of Thursday evening, CDC page title “Safer Sex, Social Gatherings, and Monkeypox” returned a notification saying, “The page you were looking for could not be found.” defender reviewed Archived version of a web page Archived by the Wayback Machine, most recently taken on May 11, it features candid pieces of federal medical communications and provides guidance on navigation. pride Intimate contact during events, sex clubs, festivals, meet-ups, parties, and infectious disease outbreaks.
The page warned that mpox can be spread through “close, sexual, or intimate contact,” acknowledging realities that federal health agencies have historically often struggled to openly discuss: anonymous sex, commercial sex venues, multiple partners, and practical ways people can reduce their risk in the real world.
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The magazine advised readers to get vaccinated, avoid sexual contact if you have symptoms, wash fabrics and sex toys, exchange contact information with your partner if possible, and reduce skin-to-skin contact in close contact settings. It also specifically mentioned “closed rooms, saunas, sex clubs, or private and public sex parties” as environments that could increase the risk of infection.
defender We also reviewed some CDC educational materials that were previously linked from a now-deleted webpage. Although the landing page itself has been removed, some of the underlying PDFs are still accessible via the CDC media server.
These materials included downloadable leaflets and guidance on safer sex.
Last July, Washington DCU.S. District Judge John D. Bates issued the following judgment: Doctors for America v. Office of Personnel Management The Trump administration’s sudden removal of information about LGBTQ+, HIV, youth health and infectious diseases from federal websites in response to an executive order targeting what it called “gender ideology” likely violated federal law.
in him opinionBates was harshly critical of what he described as a “slapstick” process within federal agencies, including the Department of Health and Human Services and the CDC, where entire web pages can sometimes be removed for isolated terms or references. The judge specifically mentioned the removal of MPX-related materials and vaccination guidance.
He ultimately reversed the directive driving the deletions and ordered the agency to restore the affected information.
But the removals raise new questions about whether federal agencies continue to quietly erase public health resources despite the court ruling.
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Dr. Demetre Daskalakis, Chief Medical Officer, Karen Lord Regional Medical Center new york cityserved as president Joe Biden’s said the White House deputy coordinator for domestic mpox response and former director of the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases. defender This removal was deliberate, ideological, and dangerously familiar.
“This is effectively a gross treason against public health,” he said.
Mr. Daskalakis is widely regarded as one of the most trusted people in the country. LGBTQ+ Public health expert.
“There’s nothing wrong with that,” Daskalakis said. “They deliberately removed it because it didn’t align with the government’s priorities.”
For Daskalakis, the page’s disappearance represents a return to an old and dangerous instinct in American public health: silence.
He traces the philosophy behind the web page back to the early days of the AIDS epidemic. How to have sex in fashionthe groundbreaking 1983 Safer Sex pamphlet previously written by gay activists Michael Cullen and Richard Berkowitz. HIV It was also fully identified. Daskalakis said he called on government agencies to avoid repeating the mistakes of the 1980s, when authorities often responded to the gay sexual health crisis with euphemisms, prejudice and outright disregard during the COVID-19 and subsequent MPOX outbreaks.
“We learned lessons from HIV,” Daskalakis said. “So we put together a document that gives people the best advice on what they should do to stay safe.”
Daskalakis said the document has received scientific approval from the CDC and is based on epidemiological evidence.
This was announced by an HHS spokesperson. defender This means the page was intentionally deleted. “This page is not medically accurate and does not align with the administration’s priorities,” the spokesperson said.
Mr. Daskalakis forcefully rejected the administration’s finding that the page was medically unsound. “Literally, they just reaganized mpox,” Daskalakis said, referring to the Reagan administration’s notorious indifference during the early AIDS crisis.
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An HHS spokesperson did not explain what information the agency considers to be medically inaccurate. HHS also declined to answer questions about whether the removal complied with Bates’ court order or why the agency continues to remove public health webpages amid growing concerns about infectious disease preparedness, including recent developments regarding Ebola and hantavirus.
“Let’s stop pretending that everyone just Googled and pulled this information up. It’s not important,” Daskalakis said. “The important thing is that it’s provided when it’s needed. In fact, the government doesn’t look like a bunch of bastards. Our data shows that commercial sex venues and multiple sex partners are potentially linked to mpox. So the only document we have that actually acknowledges it and says what to do about it is lost.”
A spokesperson for Jared Todd said: human rights campaignsaid the disappearances reflected a broader decline in trust in federal public health agencies under the Trump administration.
“We are in a dangerous time for public health,” Todd said. “Federal agencies are undermined by leaders who disrespect science and silence experts, especially when it involves LGBTQ+ people.”
Mr Todd said marginalized communities have historically been underserved by the public health system and warned that removing medically vetted information would further isolate vulnerable people.
“BIPOC, transgender, and nonbinary people are too often left behind by public health systems that are not designed with their needs in mind,” Todd said. “Everyone deserves the same access to vaccines, treatments and accurate information, no matter who they are or where they live.”
He added that the LGBTQ+ community has historically relied on mutual aid and community-based health networks when government institutions have failed.
“Our community is going to do what we’ve always done: We’re going to see each other, we’re going to get vaccinated, and we’re going to seek information from trusted local health sources,” Todd said.
Dr. Reshma Ramachandran, a physician and director of Doctors for America, said the removal appears to undermine both the intent and spirit of the group’s successful legal challenge to the Trump administration over the removal of LGBTQ+ and public health information from federal government websites.
“There appears to be no scientific basis for removing such pages, and the fact that they are in fact so steeped in ideology clearly violates, at least, the spirit of the case that we brought to court,” Ramachandran said. defender In an interview.
Ramachandran said the CDC’s removal of evidence-based mpox guidance reflects a broader pattern within the administration.
“The agency has basically abandoned its role as a public health agency to remove this evidence-based information. It’s not based on science, it’s still based on ideology,” she said.
The response to the first MPOX outbreak was widely seen by LGBTQ+ advocates as one of the rare moments when the federal government spoke openly and directly to the queer community without shame in its message about sexuality, risk, and survival.
That candor is what currently seems to make the page politically vulnerable.
Daskalakis said federal officials intentionally wrote the guidance in plain, direct language because encrypted and euphemistic messages have historically failed the most at-risk communities.
“That’s why we did it,” he said.
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He also suggested that the removals could violate Bates’ orders, although he said Bates is not a lawyer.
“I think the answer is probably yes,” Daskalakis said. “I’m not a lawyer, but this is very likely illegal.”
Representatives from the Citizens Litigation Group, which represents the plaintiffs in the lawsuit, were not available to speak. Defender. Ramachandran said Doctors for America continues to track defunct federal web pages despite a court ruling last year ordering the restoration of LGBTQ+, HIV and infectious disease information.
“Yes, unfortunately this still happens,” she said. “We still need to act as a police watchdog on these issues.”
For Daskalakis, the impact extends far beyond a single web page.
“Every time you make the public invisible or hide advice from the public, that starts to hurt the public,” he says.
He warned that the repeated removal of LGBTQ+-specific health information is accelerating distrust in federal health agencies at the very moment when public trust is most important.
“What I’m hearing is that this administration literally doesn’t care about the LGBTQ community and we’re not their priority,” Daskalakis said.
Source: Advocate.com – www.advocate.com
