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The nation’s ability to combat emerging infectious diseases and chronic health problems will be paralyzed by the Trump administration attempt to limit access to federal health data, according to medical experts.
Federal agencies have cleaned data on the health care of their websites in January to try to comply with the executive orders of President Donald Trump Sex and sex; Diversity, equity and inclusion; And foreign help.
After Trump signed the decrees, numerous national surveys, indices and national dashboards generalized and on a large scale were offline on January 31. These data sources shed light on research, the development of policies and medical decision -making.
By February 2, certain destination pages are returned online with warning messages that the content of the website had been or would be changed to comply with the decrees. Following a trial by Doctors for America, the American district judge John Bates on February 11 Directed the Trump administration To restore certain data on HHS, the centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Food and Drug Administration, noting that the lack of access to these medical treatments altered by the data.
The decision followed A letter sent by nearly 80 members of the Congress To the director of the White House management and budget office, insisting that the Trump administration restores health data, that legislators have qualified “essential for government responsibility, in search of the public and private sector, and work carried out by companies and non -profit organizations across the country”.
Read the rest to learn more about the biggest impacts of health data.
Reduced ability to understand and control infectious diseases
In his complaint, Doctors for America said that the decrees prevented a doctor from accessing the CDC critical resources to address a Chlamydia epidemic.
“In a short time, the important web pages have been removed from the websites of large public health agencies, our members have seen in the first hand how dangerous it can be to practice medicine without critical clinical information,” said Christine Petrin, Chairman of the Board of Directors for America, in a statement on temporary prohibition order.
The purge of health data has also hampered access to the key tools used to respond to infectious diseases.
During the break, the CDC temporarily removed access to Atlasplus, an interactive tool on which many public health professionals, decision -makers, suppliers and others count to respond to infectious epidemics of disease.
Atlasplus offers almost 20 years of HIV surveillance data, viral hepatitis, sexually transmitted infections and tuberculosis, allowing users to create personalized tables, maps and graphics. Users can also view the social determinants of health alongside monitoring data on each disease, which facilitates the determination of the most vulnerable groups.
Providers say it is essential to ensure reliable access to this information.
“The deletion of data sets and advice from the websites of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and National Institutes of Health (NIH) to comply with the recent decree of the President puts the health and well-being of patients in danger and makes more difficult for doctors to provide quality care”, according to a joint declaration by the American Academy of Family Physicians, the American Academy of Pediatrics and others. “These resources are not only academic references – they are essential for real -time clinical decision -making in hospitals, clinics and emergency services across the country.”
Although it is not clear exactly how changes in the Trump administration could affect future access to infectious diseases and related data, the long -term consequences could be disastrous if there is less information on the populations most vulnerable to infection, said Susan PoleAssociate executive director for public affairs and advocacy at the American Public Health Association.
Limited access could be hamstring the country’s ability to combat public health emergencies, such as the COVVI-19 pandemic, which has disproportionately affected specific populations such as the elderly.
This is particularly worrying because the public health agencies of States and Locals rely on federal funding agencies, data collection and aggregation, which allows public health professionals to identify the source of an epidemic of infectious diseases, Polan said.
If data related to infectious diseases become “compartmentalized” in 50 states – or “still worse”, 3,300 local health services – It would be difficult to identify the source of an epidemic, like the Epidemic of tuberculosis underway in Kansas or the Texas Epidemiah in TexasPolan said.
In some cases, it may even be difficult for public health officials to identify themselves when diseases are linked to the place of isolated incidents, as during an E -E epidemic. Coli, potentially obtaining the epidemic entirely and hampering their response, said Polan.
Ability hampered to understand and control chronic conditions
Trump administration has also temporarily deleted access to CDCs Behavioral risk factor monitoring systemThe largest continuous health survey system in the world, which provides detailed information on obesity rates, access to breast cancer screening, vaccination rates and the share of people with pre -existing conditions.
It is advantageous to understand health problems in low population states and rural areas because it collects data in each state, According to Kff.
The CDC has also temporarily deleted access to the investigation into risk behavior for young people, which follows behavior such as smoking and exercise habits that can influence the health and social results of high school students.
“Recently, the YRBS questioned respondents about their sexual orientation and gender identity, and the data were used to highlight substantial mental health disparities among students in LGBTQ +secondary school, compared to their non -LGBTQ +peers,” said KFF.
While federal officials have restored BRFSS access, including sexual orientation and gender identity data, some of this information could disappear or stop being collected, which makes research related or impossible.
A message on the Brfss home page said: “The CDC website is changed to comply with President Trump’s executive orders.” In addition, the Trump administration has published a message on the home behavior monitoring system for young people indicating that “any information on this page promoting gender ideology is extremely inaccurate and disconnected from the immutable biological reality according to which there are two sexes, men and women.”
Without precise information about who is ill and where, it could become more and more difficult for providers and payers to carry out the management of population health and value -based care initiatives that improve health and lower costs.
“It will waste more money,” said Polan d’Apha. “People will be injured.”
Worse health policy, decrease in confidence in health care
Many experts fear that the limitation of the type and quantity of health related to the health agencies collected by federal agencies and to restrict access can lead to worst health policies and to reduce confidence in the American health system.
The federal government should collect as much health data and information as possible to ensure that political decision -makers are well placed to develop and implement effective health policies, whatever their political or political preferences, said Brian Castrucci, president and chief executive officer of the Beaumont Foundation.
Decisions concerning the interpretation and use of this information should occur during the policy development process, not when collecting data, said Castrucci.
If the Trump administration ceases to collect or share certain data for ideological reasons, “the bias is cooked from the start” because “questions of measure have become political issues,” said Castrucci.
“Let the political decision -makers do politics,” said Castrucci.
During the Pandemic COVID-19, the first TRUMP administration ordered health systems to point out the case-style cases and the capacities of the intensive care unit to remoteraction technologies, a private company, instead of the CDC. Which led to Loss of data cocovated in real time and generalized confusion. The administration was then criticized for bad Award a federal contract to the company, which had links with the Trump organization.
“Covid’s inheritance is that we have politicized basic information,” said Castrucci. “We couldn’t even get a case account.”
Other health -related politifications could create sustainable and potentially irreversible damage.
“If the belief in the veracity of the data depends on who is in the oval office, we have lost any sense of information, data, objectivity,” said Castrucci.