Hundreds of U.S. government websites, including that of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), were found to be inaccessible on Monday.
An official list showed that over 350 out of nearly 1,400 websites were down, including those related to the Departments of Defence, Commerce, Energy, Transportation and Labour, as well as the CIA and the Supreme Court.
It is not known exactly when the sites became unavailable and whether they were temporarily taken offline or permanently deleted under President Donald Trump’s administration.
Trump has tasked Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, with cutting public spending. In a video on his social media platform X, Musk called the USAID “hopeless” and insisted that “it has to go.” He said President Trump agreed.
Several U.S. government websites have removed references to LGBT communities. Trump, supported by a highly conservative segment of the population, has vowed to end “transgender ideology.”
The US president also decided to terminate diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programmes within the administration.
The removal of content related to AIDS or LGBT communities from health agency websites is “deeply concerning,” the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA) commented.
This creates a dangerous gap in information and scientific data needed to monitor and respond to epidemics, the organisation warned.
Diseases like mpox, AIDS, and other sexually transmitted infections pose a public health threat to the entire population, the IDSA said in a statement.
