Why is Texas keeping deaths a secret?

This week we launch a new feature in which we ask distinguished reporters to highlight an issue or story that is either being missed entirely by the media — or significantly undercovered. We start with Cary Aspinwall, investigative reporter for the Dallas Morning News. — Ed.

The missing story: A lack of accurately reported data and public records related to death, especially in Texas.

Where we stand: Until 2010, Texas had a system in place where summary index data, including cause of death, could be acquired from the state through public records requests.

In recent years, however, the state Attorney General has allowed Texas to keep this data secret, under the guise of preventing fraud.

This is especially frustrating because Texas also does not have a central medical examiner or coroner’s office. There are 13 separate county medical examiner’s offices, in a state with 254 counties. In many places, a Justice of the Peace — a court official, not a medical doctor — determines who gets an autopsy and an official cause of death.

Why it matters: We don’t have accurate public information and records about how people are dying in Texas.

Researchers can’t agree on exactly how much the maternal mortality rate has spiked here, but the state put together a task force to study the issue before learning the increase they were so concerned about may have been wrong.

So some causes of death in Texas may be overreported, others underreported.

When computational journalist Stephanie Lamm and I spent several months in 2017 examining all the jail deaths of women in Texas, we found at least 10 drug-related cases that were labeled incorrectly. Many women had died in county or city jails of drug overdose or withdrawal, but we found cases where some deaths were wrongly labeled as accidents, suicides or natural causes instead of drugs.

How can Texas know when it has a problem if its own numbers aren’t right?

[Photo: City of Minneapolis Archives via Flickr.]