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How to Access Important Health Info That's Been Scrubbed From the CDC Site

The Trump administration removed pages relating to LGBTQ issues, HIV information, racial disparities and more, but you can still find them on the Wayback Machine.

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Headshot of Joe Hindy
Joe Hindy
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Headshot of Gael Cooper
Gael Cooper
CNET editor Gael Fashingbauer Cooper, a journalist and pop-culture junkie, is co-author of "Whatever Happened to Pudding Pops? The Lost Toys, Tastes and Trends of the '70s and '80s," as well as "The Totally Sweet '90s." She's been a journalist since 1989, working at Mpls.St.Paul Magazine, Twin Cities Sidewalk, the Minneapolis Star Tribune, and NBC News Digital. She's Gen X in birthdate, word and deed. If Marathon candy bars ever come back, she'll be first in line.
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3 min read
The Centers for Disease Control headquarters in Atlanta is shown

Pages from the CDC and other websites that were taken down can be viewed via The Wayback Machine.

 Anadolu/Getty Images

The Centers for Disease Control and other government websites began complying with President Donald Trump's executive orders on Jan. 31, removing dozens of webpages concerning LGBTQ health, HIV information, racial disparities and even treatment guidelines for some diseases. The purge took place over the weekend, leaving millions without potentially important health and wellness information. 

Some of the web pages were replaced with a message stating that the site is "being modified to comply with President Trump's Executive Orders," while others are simply gone. Some information, such as this webpage for LGBT health services, is still available from the CDC archives. However, such web pages are now difficult to find and will likely be completely removed as the CDC continues to fulfill Trump's orders. 

Read more: Missing: Thousands of Government Web Pages Removed by New Administration

But the Internet never forgets, and most of the removed web pages are still available to view via The Internet Archive's Wayback Machine. The Internet Archive is best known for scraping and archiving as much of the Internet as it can and, thus, has saved pages from the CDC from before the president's order. Enterprising individuals can consult the archives to still get the information the CDC was forced to remove from its website. 

Since The Internet Archive is a nonprofit funded by donations, Trump's executive orders don't affect what it can show. 

How to view removed web pages on Archive.org

Using Archive.org is a pretty straightforward process. For the most part, the only information you need is the original URL for the web page that was taken down. For now, those can mostly still be found when you search for the topic, even though the content isn't visible.

The Wayback Machine shows results in the form of a calendar. Some dates on the calendar will have blue or yellow circles. Blue circles denote days when the Wayback Machine took a snapshot of a website that is available for viewing. Yellow circles represent partial or incomplete captures.

Here is how to look up things on The Internet Archive. The tutorial works the same if you're on a mobile browser or web browser. 

  1. Go to The Internet Archive's Wayback Machine.
  2. Paste the URL you're looking for into the search box on the website.
  3. Once the calendar shows up, seek out any dates on the calendar with blue circles. 
  4. If none exist, return to the top of the search results and click where it says "2024" to load last year's snapshots.
  5. Once you locate the most recent date with a blue circle, click or tap on it. 
  6. Wayback Machine will show you a snapshot taken of that webpage from that date. 

Once done, you'll have a snapshot of the deleted page. For example, here are the CDC's guidelines for LGBTQ care from the Wayback Machine. The Wayback Machine can be slow, and since many users are seeking these removed webpages, you may have to attempt your search a few times to get it to go through. 

Here are some of the CDC removed pages