Usha Lee McFarling , 2025-04-24 18:44:00
It’s hard to remember all the earthshaking decisions and events that have transpired with unprecedented speed in the first few months of the Trump administration. We’re tracking, day by day, what’s happened in the worlds of science and health.
Key
Legal action
Covid
DEI and LGBTQ+
Executive action
Funding cuts and freezes
Job cuts and staffing changes
MAHA
Science
Vaccines
Jump to day 10 — 20 — 30 — 40 — 50 — 60 — 70 — 80 — 90
— Day 1 the inauguration
January 20
Trump administration orders closure of all federal DEI offices, workers placed on leave.
Administration bars federal funding for NGOs that provide abortions;
withdraws proposed ban on menthol cigarettes; rescinds Biden order to increase abortion access; fires federal inspectors general, including for HHS.
Grant disbursements paused to ensure they comply with executive orders.
Servicemembers dismissed for refusal to take Covid vaccine are reinstated.
States have difficulty accessing Medicaid funds after Trump halts some federal payments. The administration moves quickly to clarify that the health program shouldn’t be subject to the freeze.
Administration orders agencies to suspend programs that recognize transgender people.
Funds cut for navigators who help people enroll in Affordable Care Act health plans.
Trump orders federal funding be withheld from schools requiring Covid vaccination.
Freeze on Federal Register listings is being used to block NIH grant funding.
Trump executive order calls for more transparency in medical pricing.
A child in Texas who was unvaccinated dies during a growing measles outbreak, the first U.S. measles death in 10 years. Kennedy, a longtime critic of the measles vaccine, appeared to try to downplay the news, saying the outbreak is “not unusual.”
In Fox News opinion piece, Kennedy doesn’t endorse measles vaccine.
Amid worsening measles outbreak, Kennedy embraces cod liver oil and other unconventional treatments for measles, says vaccines prevent infection but casts getting a shot as a personal decision.
HHS says CDC will study the debunked link between vaccines and autism.
Kennedy vows to rid foods of red dyes.
VA announces it will phase out gender-affirming care.
NIH terminates grants to study HIV prevention drug PrEP.
White House announces suspension of $175 million in grants to the University of Pennsylvania over a transgender athlete.
Funding for new Covid-19 treatments canceled.
Trump threatens to withhold $9 billion in federal funding for Harvard University.
Administration says it will pause $510 million in funding to Brown University.
HHS will “undertake a massive testing and research effort” to determine causes of autism by September, Kennedy tells Trump at a Cabinet meeting. “There’s got to be something artificial out there that’s doing this,” Trump says. “If you can come up with that answer, where you stop taking something, eating something, or maybe it’s a shot. But something’s causing it.”
Administration says it will freeze $2.2 billion in grants to Harvard after the university rejects demands that it make vast policy changes and submit to federal oversight over its alleged failure to combat antisemitism.
U.S. DOGE Service institutes “Defend the Spend” initiative at HHS agencies including NIH, causing payment backlogs as grant recipients are now required to justify routine drawdowns of awarded money and government officials have to sign off on each, Washington Post reports.
