Sept. 5, 2025

HHS Agrees to Restore Deleted Public Health Data in Win for Washington's Patients and Physicians

This week, we are thrilled to announce that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the defendants in WSMA et al. v. Kennedy et al., has agreed to restore webpages and data that were wrongfully deleted earlier this year, ensuring that these critical resources are once again available to physicians, scientists, medical professionals, and the American public.

Since January, the federal executive branch has deleted or removed information from numerous websites that physicians, nurses, scientists, public health professionals, and others rely upon, removing data on a wide range of topics including pregnancy risks, opioid-use disorder, the AIDS epidemic, and more. In response, the WSMA, leading a plaintiff group that includes eight medical organizations and public health nonprofits, sued the federal government to stop the deletion of vital public health and science data. WSMA et al. v. Kennedy et al. highlighted the administration's "arbitrary, capricious and unreasoned" decisions to delete these critical resources, which federal law requires be made available to the American people.

In a press release issued on Monday, WSMA President John Bramhall, MD, PhD, said, "I am extremely proud of the health care community in Washington state and our partners in this case for pushing back on this egregious example of government overreach.

"As the leading voice for physicians in Washington state, the WSMA engaged in this legal effort to resist interference into the physician-patient relationship and to show patients and communities that regardless of the whims of governments or politics, physicians are committed to providing accurate, evidence-based care to patients and we will fight any intrusion into our ability to do so."

News of the settlement was widely reported this week, with well-reported stories appearing in the Seattle Times, Spokesman-Review, and KING5/KREM, and local public radio outlets, among other Washington outlets. The story was picked up nationally, as well, appearing in the Associated Press, Axios, and Fox News, and appearing in popular trade publications MedPage Today, Healthcare Innovation, Healthcare IT News, and Bloomberg Law. Most reporting features extensive comments from Dr. Bramhall, keeping the story physician-focused and patient-driven and underscoring the impact of the removals on the ability of physicians to provide care to their patients.

The terms of the settlement require HHS to restore websites and data sources identified in Appendix A of the complaint that were unlawfully taken down earlier this year and have not already been restored. The WSMA and its co-plaintiff organizations, which include the Washington Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics and AcademyHealth among others, expect the resources to be restored in the coming weeks, and will remain vigilant that the websites are restored to their condition at the time of removal, as per the settlement agreement, and for future removals of taxpayer-funded health information.

The WSMA would like to thank the many individual WSMA members who provided assistance during the lawsuit, from answering our member survey on the impact of the data removals to offering supporting testimony and declarations of harm for the lawsuit and participating in our outreach to media. A special thanks to our co-plaintiff partners, the Washington Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics and its physician leaders, Beth Ebel, MD, and James Polo, MD, for joining our media outreach.

For questions, contact WSMA Director of Communications Graham Short at gfs@wsma.org.