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Fatality Analysis Reporting System
The most recently available Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) data for the 2022 calendar year have now been restored to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's (NHTSA's) File Downloads webpage. The official explanation for the earlier removal of the files was that the data did not conform to President Trump's "Executive Order Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government." Once described by a former leader of NHTSA's National Center for Statistics & Analysis as a "national treasure," the FARS system is a vital source of public health information that documents every fatal, motor vehicle crash that has occurred on a public roadway in the United States since 1975. Hundreds of research papers that use or refer to these data can be accessed through the National Library of Medicine and an important use of the FARS data is for surveillance of motor vehicle defects. How long the Fatality Analysis Reporting System may survive under the current U.S. political regime is unclear. The episode demonstrates the fragility of our national public health information infrastructure in an environment that is hostile to our public health. Obviously, the data are inconvenient for someone or they would not have been targeted. Had the removal of the 2022 FARS data been accomplished by hackers, the persons responsible would have been tracked down and charged with a crime under the leadership of any responsible American administration. Had the data been erased by a foreign entity, it would have been seen as an act of international terrorism. In fact, these important public health data were gotten rid of by our own government for an anti-scientific, political purpose. It was an inside job. 17 February 2025 |