‘Gender Ideology’ Ban is Already Harming Health, Experts Say

A yellow banner appeared on Saturday atop every page of the website of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: “C.D.C.’s website is being modified to comply with President Trump’s Executive Orders.”

The announcement was a reference to the purge on Friday of thousands of pages from the site that included terms such as “transgender,” “L.G.B.T.” and “pregnant person.” The executive order required C.D.C. scientists to remove any material that promoted “gender ideology.”

But many C.D.C. pages that were taken down made no mention of “gender ideology” terms. And their absence was already endangering the health of some of the most vulnerable Americans, many experts said.

Among the missing pages are vaccine information statements, which must be given to patients before they can be immunized; guidelines for contraception; and several pages on how race and racism affect health outcomes.

Also removed: the portal to a database containing 20 years of H.I.V. data that doctors rely on to determine whether a pregnant woman lives in an area of high H.I.V. prevalence and should be tested for the virus in her third trimester.

(Some of this information is still accessible online, but the usual entry points remain broken).

“I am very fearful and I am very angry about what is happening right now,” said Dr. Ina Park, an expert in H.I.V. and other sexually transmitted infections at the University of California, San Francisco.The shake-up accompanied two other directives also aimed at expunging information on certain topics. C.D.C. scientists were ordered late on Friday to withdraw any pending publications, at any scientific journal, that mention the forbidden terms, according to an email viewed by The New York Times.