Restoring the CDC website

I had intended to keep this blog to a weekly or every-other-week cadence, but that was quickly destroyed in favor of helping keep our public health data public. It was widely reported in late January and throughout February of this year (2025) that the CDC website was undergoing changes. These changes included erasing references to the LGBTQIA+ community, anything having to do with diversity or gender identity, and god-knows what else. Furthermore, datasets that had been publicly available were being taken down. Needless to say, I couldn't stand for that. 

Since February 16th, I have been working with various other volunteers to restore the CDC website and data. Our efforts have been gargantuan and our successes have been sweet. On March 3rd, we launched RestoredCDC. We had found a comprehensive archive of the primary CDC domain (the www domain) that we could serve on our server (located in Europe). 

But that wasn't the end of the story - we had to get word out. What good was this site if no one knew about it? So, we reached out to journalists, influencers, anyone who would listen, and requested that they share the URL. Still, there was a movement brewing, people reached out to volunteer and be part of the effort. There was still additional technical work to figure out. How do we patch errors on the sites due to the original archival crawl? How do we serve the subdomain archives that weren't included in the original crawl? 

So, our work is on-going. I don't know when I'll be able to return to my newly established blog, but my efforts have to go towards fighting science censorship and erasure. Remember, don't comply in advance. And remember the refrain: Fuck you, make me.