Changes to federal health websites have raised concerns about their reliability. These independent sources offer an alternative. Soon after President Donald J. Trump took office for his second term, thousands of health websites run by the federal government that kept the public informed about infectious diseases, mental health, vaccines and more were taken offline.
Many eventually returned — in large part because a judge ordered the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to temporarily restore the pages — but some had been altered, with sections on topics such as health equity and teen pregnancy deleted. The changes, along with uncertainty around the future of these sites, has led some public health experts to question whether the websites can still be trusted as the gold standard of trustworthy health information, as they’ve long been regarded.
Federal health agencies are already facing a crisis of confidence. When a recent national poll asked respondents how much trust they had in the C.D.C. to make the right health recommendations, more than one-third replied “not much” or “not at all.” Nearly half said the same about the Food and Drug Administration.
Experts fear that with less trust in public health institutions, more people seeking medical information might turn to social media, where misinformation is rampant. That has made it all the more valuable for the public to find evidenced-based sources of health information.