Why?

Now surfing the net, as one tends to do from time to time, this was happened across on Climate Audit. The Texas sharpshooter fallacy is a logical fallacy in which information that has no relationship is interpreted or manipulated until it appears to have meaning ...The fallacy is related to the clustering illusion, which refers to the tendency in human cognition to interpret patterns in randomness where none actually exist.


Now in a recent study, Otago University researchers analysed the cases of 7200 New Zealand women who died of cancer between 1988 and 1997. Occupational data was taken from death certificates ... but, Statistics NZ has stopped noting occupations on death certificates, so the data is no longer easily available. Nor does the cancer registry make a note of occupation.


Why not? ... and who makes the decisions as to what information will be recorded and the rationale behind these decisions?


Without 'good data' all that is left are the apriori intuitives, the texas sharpshooter who draws the target around the cluster of shots.
This unfortunately is the case with: A & E admissions to hospital - none , to my knowledge keep good records of frequency of referral/admission, reason for referral/admission, or even attempt to identify source (geographical location); reading or general academic failings in schools - these are apparently attributable to geographic area (i.e. low S.E.S. areas), definitely not to the school that perpetuated such deficit; greater or lesser recidivism rates resulting from different programmes from different prisons, and the impact of greater social engineering - for example why was baseline data not kept on child behaviour in schools prior to the removal of corporal punishment ... prior to the removal of 'slapping' as a corrective measure for misbehaviour effected by parents?

Why?