Scientists, researchers and private health organizations scrambled to preserve as much federal public health data and guidelines as possible last week after news reached them that the Trump administration planned to pull down federal agency websites.

Many have taken that data and moved it to personal websites or Substack accounts, while others are still figuring out what to do with what they have gathered.

These often-anonymous archivists are now facing the colossal task of connecting with one another to figure out just how much information has been saved and how to re-create a centralized network of websites where it can be easily accessed by the public again.

“The deletion of information or just the threat of it should make us uneasy,” said Candace St. John, who is working with a collective of public health workers fighting to preserve data called AltCDC. “It’s something that is really going to undermine a lot of communities across the nation.”

St. John — who describes herself as a "liaison" among the health workers who have compiled this data, connecting workers and tracking what has been saved — added that federal public health data is especially important in rural areas that normally don’t have their own health departments like cities do.

“We rely on these data sets to make important decisions up and down,” she said.

After President Trump signed executive orders taking aim at "gender ideology" and diversity, equity and inclusion efforts, federal health agencies began scrubbing their websites of materials related to the topics.

The impact has been widespread. Since last Friday, more than 80,000 pages from more than a dozen U.S. government websites have been taken down, according to a

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