The Case of the Missing US Data

More or Less

BBC

Business, Mathematics, Science, News Commentary, News

4.6 • 3.5K Ratings

🗓️ 27 September 2025

⏱️ 10 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In early February 2025, something strange started happening across US government websites.

Decades of data began disappearing from webpages for agencies such as the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Institutes of Health and the Census Bureau. In many cases the entire website went dark. Within a few days some 8,000 government pages and 3,000 datasets had been taken down. Since then, many have been reinstated - but some have not. We speak to Professors Maggie Levenstein and John Kubale to find out why this data was taken away, and why any of it matters.

If you spot any numbers or statistical claims that you think we should check out contact: [email protected]

Presenter: Tim Harford Producer: Lizzy McNeill Series Producer: Tom Colls Editor: Richard Vadon Production Co-Ordinator: Rosie Strawbridge Audio Mix: Neil Churchill

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	BBC Sounds, music, radio, podcasts.
0:05.6	Your time starts now.
0:07.2	You're about to listen to a BBC podcast.
0:09.4	Absolutely right.
0:11.5	So, you might like to know that the BBC makes loads of other podcasts.
0:15.6	Really?
0:16.4	Wow.
0:17.2	Many of them are very funny.
0:19.1	Which I think means...
0:20.3	A hatful of ha-hars. And energy. Even if we do very funny. Which I think means... A hatful of ha haas.
0:21.7	And energy!
0:22.9	Even if we do say so ourselves.
0:24.3	I agree 100% of that.
0:26.7	Find them all on BBC Sounds.
0:28.6	Just tell us a joke. Come on, tell us a joke. Tell us a joke.
0:30.5	Come on, tell us a joke.
0:31.4	Just search comedy on BBC Sounds.
0:33.6	I'm really looking forward to getting stuck in.
0:36.0	Hello and thanks for downloading the more or less podcast.
0:39.3	With a programme that delves into data,
0:41.8	steeps itself in statistics and mulls over mathematical mysteries.
0:46.1	And I'm Tim Harford.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from BBC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of BBC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.