For years, veterinary researcher Maurice Pitesky has run up against a roadblock while tracking the rapid spread of avian flu: a lack of public data. Depending on which dataset you’re looking at, you could have a very different understanding of avian flu infection levels. Without more transparency around avian flu testing, it’s not possible to determine why these birds were sick. Farmworker advocates faced similar challenges to obtaining data on farm locations, especially early in the avian flu outbreak. “But just to make sure that at least public health folks could collaborate.”This article was originally published by Sentient.