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Since President Trump has taken office, H.H.S. has cut over $9.5 billion in grant funding that had been approved but not yet distributed to programs and researchers.

The largest grant cuts were at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the nation’s nerve center for tracking diseases and preventing premature deaths. The administration also gave out pink slips to some of the country’s top epidemiologists and effectively ended C.D.C. programs on core issues ranging from chronic diseases and lead poisoning to reducing deaths from drug overdoses, maternal deaths, childhood injuries, smoking and more.

The administration cut over $4.6 billion in grants related to pandemic response, both for Covid and future pandemics. It laid off experts on imminent health threats, such as widespread transmission of bird flu to humans, leaving the country dangerously unprepared for the next emergency.

Mr. Kennedy fired all 17 members of the panel that produces the nation’s vaccination guidelines, replaced them with multiple vaccine critics and cut $1.1 billion in funding for vaccinations, including support for a program that helps provide free shots for low-income children. High levels of vaccine coverage are important to maintain herd immunity, and making it harder to get vaccines could lead to a resurgence in vaccine-preventable diseases.

Over 2,600 grants were terminated at the N.I.H., eliminating $3.3 billion in promised funds and threatening the nation’s position as the world leader in biomedical research.

The administration claimed it was cutting N.I.H. funding to target research tied to “diversity, equity and inclusion” and “radical gender ideology.” This included studies on reducing health disparities among people of color and L.G.B.T.Q.+ communities and efforts to lower pregnancy complications among minority women. (Mr. Trump’s policy was recently ruled illegal by the courts.) But research in these targeted areas only accounts for around 7 percent of the total cuts.

Around $170 million in cuts were for studies of cancer, which remains the second leading cause of death in the United States, claiming more than 600,000 lives each year. Cuts in cancer research will cost lives by delaying the discovery of cures and better methods to slow cancer progression.

Over 170 grants were cut for research into H.I.V. prevention and treatments, threatening the 1.2 million Americans and almost 40 million people worldwide who are living with H.I.V.

Mr. Kennedy has promised to tackle the burden of chronic disease, but around 390 cut grants were for studies of the most prevalent chronic diseases, such as heart disease, diabetes, Alzheimer’s and obesity.

Other grants were caught in the terminations as well, including cuts to basic science research to understand the causes of diseases. Many researchers whose work has been terminated say they still don’t know why their studies were targeted. (The N.I.H. has been directed not to cancel more research projects for now.)

Although approximately 100,000 Americans die each year from drug overdoses, the administration canceled 129 grants from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.

Seven grants, including those to research how to better protect food and drug safety, were cut from the F.D.A.

The Trump administration made massive staffing cuts to the Administration for Children and Families and has closed down several offices that oversee Head Start, which since 1965 has been the government’s flagship program to help low-income children. Head Start-funded preschools have reported delays in getting grant funding.

The damage done by slashing the nation’s research infrastructure — the loss of knowledge to save lives and the loss of scientific talent to other countries — will have lasting consequences. But torpedoing research is only one way the administration is putting our health at risk.