Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar, Trump and Vice President Pence in the White House Jan. 29, 2018.
Credit: White House photo/Joyce Boghosian

America’s federal database of medical treatment guidelines—a resource for doctors, hospitals and patients for more than two decades—will be dead on Tuesday (July 17). The National Guideline Clearinghouse website at Guidelines.gov was shut down by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, it said, because “Federal funding through AHRQ will no longer be available to support the NGC.”

Rep. Hal Rogers (R-Ky.), chair of the House Appropriations Committee until the beginning of last year, had targeted the agency for elimination even after doctors warned him not to kill Guidelines.gov. As TYT reported on Sunday, Rogers doubled the number of health-industry companies in which he invested last year.

The White House also pitched killing the research agency. Under new Appropriations Chairman Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen (R-N.J.), the agency was spared last year, but the Guidelines.gov budget was slashed from $2.1 million to $1.2 million.

The national guidelines have been a target for Republicans since the 1990s, when back […]