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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
by Tyrubias 2y ago
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.
- jagged-chisel 2y agoIsn't this data already inaccessible to those who are not tech savvy? My grandma isn’t visiting any of the data download sites provided by the federal government. She doesn’t even know why she would, or even that such data is available. And if I provide it to her, she hasn’t the skills to do anything with it.
- talldayo 2y agoIt's a bit like asking whether road signs are effective for Americans who can't read. The signs are there for the people that are using the road, and if you're not using the road you can safely ignore it.
- whatshisface 2y agoIt's also a bit like saying that medical school is an elitist institution that only benefits the medical class. :-)
- seabass-labrax 2y agoI'm not sure the analogy works: roads were around long before writing, and there are still road users who can't read. That is why pedestrian crossing signals use lights in the shape of a person rather than written instructions.
- Sakos 2y agoMore like asking whether road signs are effective for Americans who are passengers in cars. No, it doesn't directly do her any good that they're technically accessible since she can't act on it, but it sure as hell affects her life that other people have access to the information provided by road signs.
- Applejinx 2y agoThat's why this is more of an attack on the Hacker News demographic, not Grandma. If you had a real startup doing real things in healthcare, this is an intentional spoke in your wheels.
- whatshisface 2y agoGrandma goes to the doctor.
- rexpop 2y agoLuckily, we live in a society of specialists, and while you are laying bricks, public health orgs are generating reports and taking interviews and making these data accessible and meaningful to you. So, yes, your grandma relies on a data "supply chain" but, nevertheless, it benefits her.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- vharuck 2y agoA lot of federal money goes to state and local health programs. For example, consider mammograms. A state will be given a budget to spend on mammograms. The state doesn't do those screenings itself, so it solicits bids from several healthcare organizations. Those organizations create proposals with estimates of the number of residents eligible for free screening in their area, the burden of breast cancer among that group, and whether those potential patients fall into underserved or high risk demographics. All of that comes from high quality data published by the federal government. Those groups pull data from these online data sets. Your grandma might have gotten free mammograms because of that data.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- Gigachad 2y agoA lot of the user facing pages with general info about stuff like HIV has been deleted too.
- arunabha 2y agoAgreed that your grandma is unlikely to access the data directly, however that doesn't imply she is not affected by it's removal. As others have noted, professionals your grandma almost certainly depends upon(doctors for example) rely on the data.
- 13_9_7_7_5_18 2y ago[dead]
- skykooler 2y agoWould the removed data be something that could be requested under FOIA?
- jeffgreco 2y agoRequires a law abiding administration.
- qingcharles 2y agoI can answer this as a serial FOIA litigator. If the data is still in the possession of the government (e.g. in backups, on paper) then it is FOIA-able. I had a gov agency temporarily throw all the materials into a trash can when I requested them and argued that since they were sitting in a trash can they were not available under FOIA.
- Diederich 2y ago> temporarily throw all the materials into a trash Just curious, did they pull it out of the trash later on?
- qingcharles 2y agoYes. It was argued in court that they couldn't be expected to go into the trash to pull out documents. But they were later. The case was settled on some ground, I can't remember what. Maybe they handed over the documents in the end. This was a decade ago, so I'm hazy on what the final outcome was. A lot of public bodies will play games like this. It's not even clear to me why they do it. It'll be documents that aren't even controversial that they will resist. Ask them what brand of coffee they buy for the break room and they'll immediately get defensive and find some random exemption to apply. Law enforcement bodies are by far the worst, I think because the public are seen as terminal nuisances all the way down through the bodies.
- jimmydoe 2y agomajority of voters have made an ultimate choice. everything has to serve the choice. if you pay tax but don't or can't vote, sorry, it's your own problem.
- refurb 2y agoIt is terrifying. Especially since the Executive Order didn't require it. Why is the CDC taking down data when it's not required to do so?