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CDC data are disappearing

theatlantic.com

391–400 of 656 posts

Re: CDC data are disappearing

#391
post #38
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Musk is evidently seizing control of the Office of Personnel Management Suddenly I feel out of the loop when it comes to US politics, how come Musk is suddenly seemingly seizing control of parts of the US government? I don't recall him being on any ballots or anything?

Musk was appointed as the administrator of DOGE, itself a subordinate "temporary organization" under the United States DOGE Service (formerly the United States Digital Service). All of this is happening within the Executive Office of the President, which is essentially fancyspeak to mean the government employees working the Executive Branch of the federal government. Those government employees serve at the pleasure o…

I'd be very surprised to find Musk went through the trouble of becoming an actual employee with a Salary. Are cabinet members very often volunteers?

Re: CDC data are disappearing

#392
post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's even worse for us of the rest of the world, because the United States influence the whole world, and we can't do anything against this tragedy.

It is bad for the rest of the world but the rest of the world has an exit. Call your representatives and stop using US dollar for trade. Literally, that one action alone will save a lot of grief for people outside the US. This is not a joke. What will sting Elon, Trump and crooks the most is losing their wealth. The rest of the world does not need to suffer for these crooks.

> Call your representatives

This is a very US-style approach; nobody calls their "representatives" in Europe, unluckily.

Re: CDC data are disappearing

#393

Data is the ultimate Fact Check. This is a President that's adamantly opposed to fact checking [1] and has even coerced Facebook to drop fact checking. Of course they don't want data on government sites that disprove their "alternate facts". [1] https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4920827-60-minutes-tru...

Data isn't the ultimate fact check - it's just numbers waiting to be twisted. Bias, bad sources, and cherry-picking turn 'facts' into fiction. Real fact-checking needs brains, not just bar graphs.

> Data isn’t the ultimate fact check

But it is. Numbers can be twisted, but it they can easily be verified. Bias, bad sources and cherry picking can allow you to tell stories, but the data will allow you to verify those stories are indeed facts. Brain can’t really fact check things that don’t have any data.

Re: CDC data are disappearing

#394
Maybe useful to someone:

https://archive.org/details/20250128-cdc-datasets

"""

An archive of all CDC datasets uploaded to https://data.cdc.gov/browse before January 28th, 2025. Excludes corrupt datasets and data not publicly accessible.

Most datasets are accompanied by an additional file ending in -meta that includes the metadata associated with the data. Attachments referenced in these files can be found in the attachments/ folder.

If you would like to seed this data to improve its redundancy please do not use the auto generated torrent, as it is incomplete. Instead use the torrent file labeled "full-20250128-cdc-datasets-USETHIS.torrent"

"""

Re: CDC data are disappearing

#396
post #3

It’s terrifying that data US taxpayers paid for, collected and analyzed in the name of public health, can be removed on a whim. While there are a lot of efforts to archive said data, it would still make it unavailable to Americans who are not tech savvy. Unfortunately, that seems to be the idea, I think.

Would the removed data be something that could be requested under FOIA?

Re: CDC data are disappearing

#397

The scope of the scrubbing is broader that datasets. On /r/medicine they're reporting that some treatments guidelines for physicians (100 page+ PDF's) are disappearing, if they're adjacent to the topic of sex: https://old.reddit.com/r/medicine/comments/1iepzln/cdc_has_r... ( "CDC has removed the pages with STI treatment and contraceptive guidelines (self.medicine)" )

The CDC page on PrEP, a life-saving medicine to protect against HIV, has been removed. This will result in people dying. https://www.cdc.gov/hiv/prevention/prep.html

Isn't this a worthwhile kick in the pants?

No one who actually relies upon real raw data is just downloading a live snapshot from official government hosting on demand are they?

Proper data handling procedures is streaming updates, doing your own backups and archiving and sharing where possible and important. Not trusting the everlasting benevolence of whiplash politically controlled resources?

Re: CDC data are disappearing

#398
What terrifies me this time around compared to the previous one is that people in support of this kind of initiative are either much more vocal, more boosted, or simply more dominant. In his first term, there was still a form of reserve. It even permeates in this comment thread. It now feels like crazy conspiracy theories and idiocy have become an accepted, and either major stance. I just went on Twitter for a minute, and the only response to anything sensible is insults and derogatory calling.

It just started and I already feel tired

Re: CDC data are disappearing

#399
post #3

It’s terrifying that data US taxpayers paid for, collected and analyzed in the name of public health, can be removed on a whim. While there are a lot of efforts to archive said data, it would still make it unavailable to Americans who are not tech savvy. Unfortunately, that seems to be the idea, I think.

Would the removed data be something that could be requested under FOIA?

Requires a law abiding administration.
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