Federal Agencies Must Provide Access to Essential Health Information

The United States District Court for the District of Columbia ordered federal agencies to restore public access to hundreds of webpages that provided doctors, researchers, and public health officials with essential health information. The court also vacated guidance from two agencies that had prompted the webpage removals.

Public Citizen Litigation Group represented Doctors for America and the City and County of San Francisco in the lawsuit, which was filed against the Office of Personnel Management, Department of Health & Human Services (HHS), and several HHS sub-agencies (CDC, FDA, AHRQ, CBHSQ, CMS, HRSA, NCHS, NIH, and SAMHSA).

On January 31, 2025, HHS and its sub-agencies had removed the webpages with no advance notice and no explanation for the removals. The loss of key webpages and datasets created a dangerous gap in the scientific data available to monitor and respond to disease outbreaks, deprived physicians of resources that guide clinical practice, and took away key resources for communicating and engaging with patients.

Public Citizen filed the lawsuit within days. On February 11, the court issued an order that required the agencies to restore some webpages while the case proceeded. On July 3, the court entered its final judgment, requiring restoration of all the unlawfully removed webpages on which the plaintiffs relied. Between July and December 2025, the agencies restored hundreds of vital webpages.

“By taking down important health information on which physicians and other public health professionals rely to keep us all healthy, the government violated its mandate to serve the American people and uphold the law. The court’s decision affirmed that the federal government — like all of us — must follow the law.” Zach Shelley, Public Citizen Litigation Group Attorney