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Two articles about endometriosis and suicide risk assessment were removed for allegedly violating a White House policy on gender ideology.
Two Harvard Medical School doctors are suing the Trump administration for removing their research from a government-run website.
Two Harvard Medical School doctors are suing the Trump administration for removing their research from a government-run website. JonathanWiggs/The Boston Globe
Two Harvard Medical School doctors are suing the Trump administration after their research was removed from a government-run website due to references to the LGBTQ+ community and transgender and gender non-conforming people.
Filed Wednesday in federal District Court in Boston, the lawsuit accuses the US Department of Health and Human Services, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, and the Office of Personal Management (OPM) of “unlawful and dangerous suppression of doctors’ speech about how to better diagnose patients.” It also argues that the government violated the Administrative Procedure Act for its “arbitrary and capricious” removal of the articles, according to the complaint.
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“You don’t often get a case that is that clear, that viewpoint discrimination is what has happened, and that is one of the reasons why we’re very confident in this case,” said Rachel Davidson, staff attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts, which is representing the two doctors.
The two articles were removed from the Patient Safety Network (PSNet), a government-run website where doctors and medical researchers can share information about patient safety, misdiagnoses, and medical errors.
An article about endometriosis, co-authored by plaintiff Dr. Celeste Royce, was removed because it included a sentence stating that “endometriosis can occur in trans-and non-gender conforming people and lack of understanding this fact could make diagnosis in these populations even more challenging,” the complaint said.
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A second article about suicide risk assessment, co-authored by plaintiff Dr. Gordon Schiff, was removed due to the inclusion of the words “transgender” and “LGBTQ” in a list of high risk groups, according to the complaint.
Royce and Schiff were both notified last month by PSNet’s editor-in-chief that the language in the articles violated the White House policy on websites that “inculcate or promote gender ideology,” the complaint said. Both doctors rejected proposed censored versions of the articles which were altered to remove the language which the OPM deemed problematic.
“I worry about the effect of self-censorship that can happen in an environment where you may not get funding or you may not be able to publish or talk about your research,” Royce said. “I think we need to fight for those rights, for academic freedom, for freedom of speech.”
Royce and Davidson both expressed that the removal of this research has the potential to negatively impact all demographics affected by endometriosis and suicide, not just the communities which the White House policy targets.
“It’s already spilling out, as we can see with these two articles, into issues that affect an even broader swath of our country,” Davidson said. “I think it’s really troubling that this is happening, and it’s not stopping at transgender people.”
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Due to the Trump administration’s recent efforts to make substantial funding cuts to organizations like the National Institutes of Health (NIH), access to reliable and trustworthy public health information is becoming more difficult to find, according to Royce.
“Without the imprimatur of previously respected institutions like CDC and NIH, it’s going to get harder and harder for people to know where to go for trusted information, and that’s just a shame,” Royce said. “If we can change that through these kinds of efforts, then I think we’re doing a service to the public.”
The lawsuit aims to have the censored research restored and the censorship ruled unlawful going forward, according to the complaint. There are plans in place to appeal the lawsuit if the court rules in the government’s favor, but it likely won’t come to that, Davidson said.
“We think we’re going to win in this lawsuit, and I think the message is going to be that the government does not have any legitimate basis to be policing scientific research in this way,” Davidson said.
Nevertheless, Royce remains concerned about the long-term damage that similar acts of censorship from the government may have on public health.
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“If the public understands how devastating these kinds of small, little actions on the part of the government are towards limiting medical professionals’ ability to do their jobs, to take care of people, I really feel like the public would be much more alarmed,” Royce said.
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