Health data cover up? 100+ US government datasets quietly altered without warning
A recent study in The Lancet went deep into 232 datasets from major organizations such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Department of Health and Human Services, and the Department of Veterans Affairs, according to Psypost. The study, "Data manipulation within the US Federal Government," was authored by Janet Freilich and Aaron S. Kesselheim, as reported by Psypost.
What they discovered was that almost half of the datasets had had wording adjustments that were not mentioned anywhere in the formal change logs, as per the report. The most frequent edit was replacing the term "gender" with "sex," as reported by Psypost.
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To find this out, the researchers compared existing datasets to older versions held online, as per the report. In most instances, despite the dataset appearing to have been recently updated, the change logs indicated nothing had been changed, according to Psypost. For instance, a Veterans Affairs document monitoring veteran medical care changed "Gender" to "Sex" in its headers and titles, but its change log doggedly reported, "No changes have been archived yet," as reported by Psypost. It is important to know because these datasets are the foundation of millions of public health studies on everything from mental illness to chronic disease and health disparities, according to the report. When words like "gender" and "sex" are incorrectly interchanged without definition, it is nearly impossible to tell whether changes in the data indicate true changes in the population or merely a quiet rewrite behind the scenes, as per the Psypost report.
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This is not merely a statistical concern, as gender and sex are not the same thing: gender is social identity, and sex is biological categorisation, according to the report. A large number of transgender and non-binary individuals have identities that differ from the sex at birth, as reported by Psypost. Thus, if suddenly one dataset starts remapping "gender" to "sex" without explaining why it was altered, researchers cannot interpret results properly, according to the report. That confusion might compel public health officials to make decisions based on false information, as per Psypost.
The timing of the edits is also significant because the edits primarily occurred between January and March of 2025, shortly following a White House directive that called on federal agencies to drop language linked to what it referred to as "gender ideology," as reported by Psypost. Although there is no official confirmation about the dataset edits being carried out in response to the White House's directive, but the pattern indicates a coordinated effort, according to Psypost.
The researchers indicate that this lack of transparency jeopardises both scientific integrity and public trust, as per the report. They call for more robust systems for tracking and justifying all changes to data so that everyone, from policymakers to ordinary citizens, can clearly see what's been changed and why, according to Psypost. They also propose that independent groups and researchers maintain their own versions of datasets and compare them with archives on a regular basis, as per the report.What's the difference between 'gender' and 'sex' in data?'Sex' usually refers to biology (male or female), while 'gender' includes social identity (like non-binary or transgender). Swapping them without clarification can distort results.
Did the government admit to making these changes? No federal agency has publicly confirmed the edits or explained the reason behind them.
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