Employees fume as Trump wipes ‘transgender’ from CDC and deletes ‘climate change’ from agriculture department
Several health-related government websites have gone dark amid President Donald Trump’s pledge to root out wokeism from federal agencies.
As of Friday afternoon, the CDC scrubbed web pages about transgender issues, HIV prevention and other gender identity issues.
The scrubs come after the Office of Personnel Management sent a two-page memo Wednesday demanding all heads of government agencies comply with measures to end diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs.
The CDC, FDA, HHS, and National Institutes of Health (NIH) were ordered to halt external communications last week.
Workers at the agencies have fumed that blocking out health information could be dangerous for people who rely on government agencies for health advice.
Meanwhile, employees at the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) have also reportedly been ordered to pull down content related to climate change from all public websites, according emails obtained by ABC News.
It comes as Trump also ordered federal employees to remove their pronouns from their email signatures.
The chaotic scenes follow an executive order from President Trump last week requiring all federal agencies to ‘recognize women are biologically female, and men are biologically male.’
The CDC removed several pages on HIV, gender-based violence, and sexually transmitted diseases. Pictured above is the outgoing CDC boss Mandy Cohen
It is not immediately clear why some CDC pages which appear to have little bearing on transgender issues have been impacted.
Missing CDC pages also include pages with statistics on HIV in Hispanic/Latino people, women, by age and by race and ethnicity.
Pages on contraception for healthcare providers, ending gender-based violence, and heart disease rates in Florida are also missing.
A page on ending gender-based violence is also gone.
The sudden measures have drawn ire from federal employees and health experts.
John Peller, head of the AIDS Foundation Chicago, said: ‘This is very alarming. In many cases, basic health information is going dark.’
At the National Institutes of Health, a senior employee this week urged agency leaders to refuse to implement the Trump administration’s guidance in an email to acting NIH Director Matthew Memoli and other top officials, according to Reuters.
The employee, Nate Brought, director of the NIH executive office, said Trump’s orders ran contrary to years of NIH research and findings about sexuality and gender.
He wrote: ‘By complying with these orders, we will be denigrating the contributions made to the NIH mission by trans and intersex members of our staff, and the contributions of trans and intersex citizens to our society.’
‘These policies will lead to mental health crises or worse for tens of thousands of Americans who contribute productively to our communities.’
The USDA was also reported ordered to remove pages on climate change. Pictured above is former United States Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack
Meanwhile, USDA employees have also been ordered to pull down content related to climate change – a topic that Trump has repeatedly insinuated is overblown.
In the email, USDA Director of Digital Communications Peter Rhee said the process will require staff to ‘identify and archive or unpublish any landing pages focused on climate change’ and track related content in an Excel spreadsheet.
‘OC will review the submitted materials and make determinations on next steps,’ he wrote, referring to the department’s Office of Communications.
