Daniel Hooberman is a retired psychiatrist and a member of Citizens’ Climate Lobby and New Hampshire Network. He lives in Laconia and wants to leave the world a better place for his three grandchildren.

Elections have consequences. For many millions, the consequences of President Trump’s second term will be fatal. According to a 2021 analysis by The Lancet, one of the world’s most prestigious medical journals, 461,000 fewer Americans would have died from COVID during the first Trump administration if the death rate in America had been the same as in European nations.

Trump’s responses to the pandemic, including his denial of science, cuts to public health domestically and globally and the politicization of the COVID crisis were devastating to our health. Additionally, The Lancet also estimated that cutbacks to environmental regulations and worker protections under Trump led to 22,000 deaths in 2019 alone.

Now, we are faced with even deadlier consequences.

Trump is destroying life-saving programs. It is heartbreaking to comprehend the effects of slashing the United States Agency for International Development. Just the cuts to HIV/AIDS programs alone will lead to 6 million deaths by 2029. The effects on children will be devastating. In the long term, millions of children will die from preventable causes, such as infectious diseases, lack of clean water and poor nutrition.

The Vatican’s charity organization, Caritas Internalis, stated the effect of closing USAID “will kill millions of people and condemn hundreds of millions more to lives of dehumanizing poverty or even death.” The USAID budget is less than 1% of U.S. gross domestic product.

The Environmental Protection Agency is tasked with protecting human health and the environment. It is also being decimated. The cutbacks will lead to more air and water pollution, resulting in more deaths from heart and lung diseases and cancer. The EPA has also been at the forefront of PFAS regulations. These are the “forever chemicals” that have been used in thousands of consumer products, industrial processes and firefighting foams. PFAS have contaminated many water supplies, fish and the soil, and they can cause a nightmarish list of medical problems and premature deaths. We need the EPA to lead the effort to reduce PFAS exposure.

Moreover, the Trump administration is currently trying to roll back and bar the EPA from ever lowering the amount of lead allowance in drinking water. Lead poisoning in children permanently impairs brain function and leads to a lifetime of disability.

The National Institutes of Health is the world’s leading medical research agency. The list of its accomplishments includes developing treatments for an innumerable list of illnesses including heart disease, cancer, neurologic diseases, mental illness, substance abuse and infectious diseases. The NIH has contributed funding to research efforts for about 99% of drugs approved between 2010 and 2019. Drastic cuts to NIH funding will affect all medical research.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the new secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, is now in charge of the NIH, which includes the Centers for Disease Control. Kennedy has absolutely no qualifying experience for this job, and his anti-vaccine stance should be a disqualification. He plans to reduce staff significantly, especially with regards to infectious disease research. Infectious diseases have killed the most people throughout human history, and globally, vaccines have saved at least 154 million lives over the last 50 years. Increasing antibiotic resistance, current infectious diseases and the potential for another pandemic are critical areas for research.

The anti-science climate change denial of the Trump administration also has the potential to cause untold catastrophe and human misery. There is scientific consensus that the warming of the planet is increasing and is driven by human activities. The burning of fossil fuels, leading to the production of carbon dioxide, is the major driver of the greenhouse effect. Carbon dioxide emitted today can remain in the atmosphere for thousands of years, so we need to act with urgency.

It is currently estimated that, worldwide, there are between 250,000 to 400,000 deaths from hunger and diseases related to climate change each year. Air pollution from oil and fossil fuels causes over 5 million deaths per year globally.

Trump is attempting to roll back Biden’s climate-saving actions and to increase domestic oil and gas production. He has withdrawn from the Paris Climate Accords. He is trying to reduce renewable energy and the use of electric vehicles and heat pumps while increasing the use of oil and gas. This will cause thousands more deaths from pollution and will worsen climate change, which endangers us all.

Many of Trump’s actions are being challenged in court and some may be reversed.

We all need to understand the lethal result of his agenda and fight for life and health.