Doctors group sues Trump administration for deleting research and data from websites

The national physicians' group Doctors for America has launched an effort to stop Donald Trump's administration.

On Tuesday, the branches under the Department of Health and Human Services removed thousands of pages of health data and information from federal websites, Axios reported.

On Friday, it was announced that government websites would go offline as they deleted pages and removed information. The doctors group argues that the new agency heads "abused their discretion and arbitrarily deprived clinicians and researchers of tools necessary to treat patients," the report said.

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The information that was being deleted dealt with gender identity, diversity, HIV/AIDS and vaccine guidelines.

The lawsuit, filed in Washington, D.C. district court, specifically cites the Food and Drug Administration and the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, but looks at the umbrella of the Office of Personnel Management and the Department of Health and Human Services. It asks simply to restore the webpages and datasets and requests that the court bar them from any additional content being removed.

Dr. Dorothy Fink is currently the acting secretary of HHS, overseeing these major changes. Trump's appointee, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., has not been approved by the full Senate. During his Senate confirmation hearings, he was not questioned about what was unfolding at HHS or whether he supported it.

Doctors for America has approximately 27,000 members.

Read the full report here.