there is probably more detailed info about this but from the end of the article:
For the medical research community, however, the termination of these programs might be the least of its concerns. As of Tuesday, all external communication from agencies within the Department of Health and Human Services, which includes the NIH, Centers for Disease Control, and the Food and Drug Administration, were put on hold. This will include things like alerts regarding the spread of emerging diseases, such as the H5N1 bird flu that’s currently widespread in agricultural animals.
But today, it became clear that this policy extended well beyond external communications. One researcher said that an NIH workshop was canceled mid-presentation. Others have reported that all evaluations of grant proposals by the NIH are now on hold indefinitely. Should the hold last for any significant amount of time, it will have severe ripple effects, as arranging the peer review panels that evaluate grants involves complicated scheduling and travel, so the delays may persist for considerably longer.
