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The call to Angela Rasmussen came out of nowhere and raised a worrying question. Had he listened to the rumor that the key data sets would be eliminated from the website of the US disease control and prevention centers. Uu. The next day?
It is something that Rasmussen had thought it could never happen.
“It had never really thought about the CDCs would really start eliminating some of these crucial public health data sets,” said Saskatchewan University. “These data are very, very important to everyone’s health, not only in the United States but throughout the world.”
The next day, on January 31, Rasmussen began to see the data disappear. I knew I needed to take action.
Rasmussen contacted a bioinformatic friend, who knew how to preserve the data and make copies of support of the websites. With others, they rushed to preserve the data in case it was deleted.
In Data Purge Eve, many people were awake late to save the CDC website. @Charles_Gaba He downloaded everything.
A group of us are working to make this data preserved an accessible and available resource. More to come, but start here https://t.co/cljgv1u9lp
“We started archiving the entire CDC website,” Rasmussen said.
Since then, Rasmussen and his colleague have been associated with others such as the American medical care analyst Charles Gaba and directed their attention to other sites with health data, preserving information from departments and agencies such as food and drug administration (FDA ) and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid services.
Rasmussen said that the publication of some studies, such as three that would shed light on the H5N1 avian flu, also seems to be affected by the change of administration.
Rasmussen is only one of the several Canadian residents who have joined what has become an international effort of guerrillas archive to preserve copies of the websites and the data of the United States government that the administration of the president of the president of the president of the president of the president of the United States, Donald Trump, is disconnected by the administration of the president of the United States.
An analysis of the New York Times He identified thousands of pages withdrawn in the days after the inauguration of Trump, partly as a result of Trump’s executive order directed to diversity initiatives.
Among the pages that observers have seen disappear are those that monitor HIV infections, deal with the health risks of young people and contain census data, educational data and information on assisted reproduction technologies. A website was also eliminated that contains the names of the loaded in relation to the attack of January 6, 2021 against the Capitol.
A comparison of Usdata.gov The home page on January 17, before the inauguration of Trump, and on Wednesday, shows 522 less data sets.
Some commentators on social networks compare the disappearance data of the burning of books in the 1930s.
When asked about the changes on the CDC website, the agency said it is part of the changes throughout the Department of Human Health and Services (HHS).
“All changes to the websites/manuscripts of the HHS and HHS division are in accordance with the executive orders of January 20 of President Trump,” said the pink press senior Rosa Norman in a response sent by email.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has not yet answered the questions of CBC News.
It is not known if the data still exist on government servers.
Those who archive the data argue that it was paid with US tax dollars and should be in the public domain, accessible to researchers and all others.
The government has argued that eliminations are not necessarily final and that information can be accessed through the Archive Internet Wayback.
Tuesday, a federal judge from the United States granted a temporary orderordering the CDC and the FDA to restore public information on their websites while the courts listen to a lawsuit that challenges the Trump administration decision to eliminate it.
Internet files are sometimes lost data
Brewster Kahle is the founder of the Internet Archive (AI), which tracks copies of the website and the archives of the websites. Its non -profit organization is part of the end -of -term web file project that has documented US government websites. UU. At the end of each administration since 2004 and launched the project of the Democracy Library, a collection of a collection of government research and publications around the world.
However, Internet file trackers do not always collect data sets and databases.
Those who work to preserve the data sets of the US government are downloading them and, in many cases, they store them with the help of the Internet file.
“The efforts of these cooperating entities have thrown a lot, many more archived data this time,” Kahle said. “I think it is an indication that people are extremely excited to try to ensure that the government registration remains complete.”
Kahle said that to date, the United States government has not been behind government data stored by the Internet archive.
“That would be very unusual. We’ve never happened to something like that,” Kahle said.
However, if it occurs, its US Data Center is backed in British Columbia online Archive Canada and vice versa. Kahle said the Democracy Library project is also in Canada.
“That is what libraries do. We are there to keep a record of what happened, that is a role we played,” Kahle said. “Canada is always there to help the Internet archive of the United States.”
At the University of Guelph, Geography Professor Eric Nost is working with the Environmental Data Government Initiative (EDGI) to preserve EPA data, particularly related to climate change and environmental justice.
“These data are very important in terms of being able to track environmental changes, identify, for example, what places are more loaded by pollution in the US. “Obviously, that is very important for Americans, but also has real relevance for Canadians.”
For example, some Canadian cities are in favor of the wind of American factories, he said.
“Having access to what comes out of chimneys is also really important for us.”
Nost said he knows at least three other people in Canada who also work to archive environmental data. He said his group has prioritized 60 sets or data tools, filed most of them and rebuilt tools such as EJCREEN DE LA EPA.
Nost said his group is also discovering that some websites are currently blocked so that anyone who accesses them from outside the United States, such as the Federal Emergency Management Agency. National Risk Index Map.
Matt Price, an associate professor at the University of Toronto who is also working with Edgi, says that preserving the data is important because the United States is the world’s largest scientific power.
“We should worry about US data because the US federal government has been the predetermined custodian of large amounts of data that the entire world needs,” said Price.
Jessica Mahr is a Toronto headquarters for the Center for Environmental Policies innovation that helps coordinate different groups trying to archive the environmental data of the United States government. She says that the data and tools that are eliminated affect the research reported by policy to improve the quality of life.
“Without those tools, you cannot have an informed understanding of who is suffering and then where to provide them funds or programs that improve their lives,” said Mahr.
