A US Department of Veterans Affairs dataset compiling veteran health-care use in 2021 was quietly amended on March 5, 2025, reported in the paper. A column titled gender was renamed sex, and the words were also switched in the dataset title and description. Before March 5, the dataset had not been modified since it was published in 2022. As of May 1, the dataset change log, in which modifications should be tracked, is empty.

The switch from gender to sex also occurred in other public health datasets, including US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) datasets tracking global adult tobacco consumption, stroke mortality data from 2015 to 2017, and a survey of nutrition, physical activity, and obesity. The agencies involved have not issued any statements confirming or explaining these changes, but they could be intended to comply with a Presidential directive for agencies to remove "messages that promote or otherwise inculcate gender ideology". Data manipulation by the US Government, particularly when hidden, is a crisis—it makes crucial datasets untrustworthy and unusable.

Source https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(25)01249-8/fulltext

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