The United States Department of Health and Human Services under the Trump administration appears to be letting politicized and ideological priorities impact the availability of health-related information, Human Rights Watch said today. Respecting and fulfilling the right to health requires a credible, evidence-led process that enables people to make informed decisions about their health care.
In public remarks on September 22, 2025, US President Donald Trump and Secretary of Health Robert F. Kennedy Jr. espoused medical guidance advising pregnant women to avoid taking acetaminophen (also known as paracetamol), medication commonly available over-the-counter for treating pain and fever. These remarks generated considerable controversy and concern but were only the latest in a series of actions fueling wider concerns that health policy in the US is not being driven by an evidence-based approach that people's health and human rights require.
"If the administration's goal is to help make America healthy, it has to stop making it harder for people to make informed choices about health care," said Matt McConnell, economic justice and rights researcher at Human Rights Watch. "Respect for people's right to health requires health policy driven by evidence, not ideology or the personal beliefs of government officials."
Under international human rights law, everyone has the human right to the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health, which includes the right to seek and receive information concerning health issues, and to make informed decisions about their health care. Government refusal or failure to use scientifically and medically appropriate research and health education to inform health policy is inconsistent with its obligations to the public and undermines the right to health.
The Trump administration has restricted public access to federal health information resources. In accordance with a day-one executive order targeting services and information on sexual orientation and gender identity, officials removed thousands of Health and Human Services (HHS) web pages and datasets, including research articles, federal guidelines, and educational information on health issues like reproductive rights, contraception, HIV, maternal health, and mental health.
Public access to much of this information has since been restored as a result of a series of court cases brought by physicians and public health officials who found their work jeopardized by the sudden loss of these resources. In a February ruling to restore many websites and datasets taken down by the government, a federal judge stressed that "everyday Americans, and most acutely, underprivileged Americans, seeking healthcare" are those who ultimately bore the harm of these actions.
Some of these resources remained offline for significant periods, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) Mpox vaccination recommendations amid an ongoing global outbreak of the disease. Others are still offline.
Disrupting and altering these online federal healthcare resources interferes with the public's right to access health information, Human Rights Watch said. Because many of these actions targeted sites with information about gender and sexuality, they also disproportionately harmed communities that have long faced structural barriers to accessing health care and health information, particularly women and lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people.
Layoffs at HHS and its constituent agencies have also reduced the production and availability of health information resources that the public, healthcare workers, scientists, and public health officials across the country rely on. The CDC's reproductive health division was particularly affected, with significant cuts in programs that disseminate guidance on safe contraception use and publish data about the drivers behind the US' alarmingly high rate of maternal mortality among Black women.
The current administration has also eliminated several advisory committees of independent experts. This has eliminated the experts' production of evidence-based guidance for policymakers and medical professionals on issues such as eliminating systemic barriers in access to health care and preventing the spread of infections in healthcare facilities.
The administration also appears to have significantly undermined the independence of an HHS advisory committee that informs policymakers and medical professionals about evidence-based immunization practices. This calls into question whether the committee's guidance is scientifically and medically appropriate, Human Rights Watch said.
In June, Secretary Kennedy, who has long promoted views contrary to scientific consensus, removed all existing members of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), triggering immediate condemnation from the American Medical Association, the largest US professional association for physicians and medical students.
On September 18 and 19, Secretary Kennedy's handpicked replacements for ACIP voted to reverse the CDC's universal recommendation on Covid-19 vaccination, which Secretary Kennedy has long criticized. It also voted to remove the combined vaccine for measles, mumps, rubella, and varicella (MMRV) from the recommended vaccine schedule for children under age 4.
The recommendations produced by ACIP have a direct influence on the availability and accessibility of vaccines in the US. Once adopted by the CDC, as they generally are, this committee's recommendations determine which vaccines should be made available to the public. Many states' policies on vaccination are closely tied to the committee's recommendations, and almost all public and private health insurance programs cover the cost of vaccination in line with their findings.
If adopted by the CDC, the committee's recommendations would restrict parents' access to the combined MMRV vaccine for young children. Access to combined vaccines that provide coverage against multiple illnesses has been associated with increased vaccine coverage.
In August, Secretary Kennedy abruptly fired Susan Monarez as CDC director, triggering a wave of resignations from top public health officials within the agency and widespread condemnation from medical associations. In an opinion article in early September and public comments to the Senate Health Committee in late September, Monarez said that she was fired, in part, for refusing to prematurely sign off on ACIP's vaccine recommendations. Secretary Kennedy has denied these claims.
In response to these recent actions taken by the administration, several states have joined together in regional blocs to issue separate vaccine recommendations that follow the advice of private associations of medical professionals instead of ACIP. In contrast, Florida took steps in September to end all state-mandated vaccine and immunization requirements for public school attendance, and other states may soon follow suit.
"This fragmentation is a worrying sign that it is becoming much harder for the public to access consistent, reliable information about health care," McConnell said. "US authorities should ensure that federal healthcare resources are grounded in evidence and accessible to all, and should take steps to bolster the public's trust in those resources."
