Public health data disappeared. RestoredCDC.org is bringing it back
Use of Discord for Coordination
- Some users report the project’s Discord invite as broken or sending them into a “blackhole.”
- Strong criticism of Discord as a walled garden, poor for open, searchable, archival work; preference for open protocols (IRC, Matrix).
- Others defend Discord as frictionless for mainstream users (“click, sign up, you’re in”), though several counter that in-browser access is now de-emphasized and laden with captchas and verification.
Archiving Strategies and Archive.org
- Multiple comments urge supporting archive.org financially; some set up recurring donations.
- Others warn that archive.org, being US-based and legally embattled, is not immune to shutdown or legal attacks; recommend local and international backups.
- There’s a call for multiple, geographically diverse archivists to reduce single-point-of-failure risk.
What Data Has Disappeared?
- One commenter initially questions whether anything significant is gone, citing PubMed’s brief outage.
- Others point to legal filings and reporting documenting CDC removals of content on LGBTQ health, gender identity, “pregnant people,” HIV, contraception, and Mpox vaccine guidance.
- Similar purges at other agencies (e.g., climate-change pages at USDA) are mentioned.
Value and Limitations of RestoredCDC.org
- RestoredCDC is praised as useful to clinicians and scientists who know specific URLs and can compare “before vs after” CDC content.
- A key missing feature: a curated list or index of changed/removed pages to surface patterns in what is being censored, not just provide access to known pages.
Sex, Gender, and Language Debate
- A large subthread debates the term “pregnant people.”
- One side calls it absurd or “newspeak,” preferring “women/men” and arguing rare edge cases don’t justify broad linguistic change.
- The other side stresses biological complexity (intersex conditions, gamete production anomalies) and argues inclusive terminology is medically and ethically appropriate.
- Accusations of bigotry and counter-accusations of ideological overreach highlight intense polarization.
Political Context and Broader Data Purges
- Many see CDC removals as part of a deliberate effort by the current administration to weaken public institutions, politicize science, and privatize functions.
- Side discussion on halted US aid to Ukraine and how executive power, impeachment, and courts interact.
- Economic anxiety, inflation, and voting behavior are debated as drivers of support for the administration.
- Users note other federal data issues (e.g., temporary Bureau of Justice Statistics outage, deletion of the NLEAD database) as part of a larger worrying pattern.