Technology

A team of volunteer archivists has recreated the Centers for Disease Control website exactly as it was the day Donald Trump was inaugurated. The site, called RestoredCDC.org, went live Tuesday and is currently being hosted in Europe.

As we have been following since the beginning of Trump’s second term, websites across the entire federal government have been altered and taken offline under this administration’s war on science, health, and diversity, equity, and inclusion. Critical information promoting vaccines, HIV care, reproductive health options including abortion, and trans and gender confirmation healthcare have been purged from the CDC’s live website under Trump. Disease surveillance data about bird flu and other concerns have either been delayed or have stopped being updated entirely. Some deleted pages across the government have at least temporarily been restored thanks to a court order, but the Trump administration has added a note rejecting “gender ideology” to some of them.

“Our goal is to provide a resource that includes the information and data previously available,” the team wrote. “We are committed to providing the previously available webpages and data, from before the potential tampering occurred. Our approach is to be as transparent as possible about our process. We plan to gather archival data and then remove CDC logos and branding, using GitHub to host our code to create the site.”