Birthing persons and trans-kids hardest hit.

Confusion and anxiety is rippling through the US health-research community this week following Donald Trump taking office as the 47th US president. His administration has abruptly cancelled research-grant reviews, travel and trainings for scientists inside and outside the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the world’s largest public biomedical funder. Adding to the worry: the Trump team appears to have deleted entire webpages about diversity programmes and diversity-related grants from the agency’s site.

The cancelling of meetings and travel is part of a pause in external communications issued on 21 January by the NIH’s parent organization, the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Researchers who spoke to Nature say that although a short, daylong pause in communications at US agencies has occurred in the past when new administrations have started, to reorient strategy, the reach and length of the Trump team’s — it is set to last until at least 1 February — is unprecedented. Without advisory-committee meetings, the NIH cannot issue research grants, temporarily freezing 80% of the agency’s US$47-billion budget that funds research across the country and beyond.

Related savagery: Questioned by reporters in North Carolinaabout the removal of Anthony Fauci’s security detail – “He made a lot of money. He can pay for his own security.” Will you feel responsible if something happens to him? – “No.”