STAT scooplet: Boy, did that shutdown create some drama 

Remember when the government shut down for 35 days last winter, forcing FDA employees to go without paychecks during the holidays? (This was when President Trump refused to open the government if Democrats didn’t pay for a border wall. It was also the shutdown that then-Commissioner Scott Gottlieb called “one of the most significant operational challenges in FDA's recent history.”)

We now have the inside scoop on just how much that shutdown impacted the FDA’s morale, thanks to a finally-returned FOIA request from our former colleague, Ike Swetlitz. 
 
Here’s a selection of the emails that FDA staffers sent to an inbox set up to deal with employee questions, and of course, their grievances.
 
“I left a decent job to work for FDA, which I thought of as my dream job. That job has turned into my worst nightmare,” said one staffer, whose name, like the rest of the quoted staffers, was redacted. 
 
“It would be appreciated if you would post on the FDA website detailed procedural instructions on how FDA employees can resign from their jobs during the lapse in appropriations,” another said, bleakly. “We need to get on with our lives.” 
 
A third said he or she felt that the Trump administration was telling staffers to “do you job or else hit the bricks,” and added that the agency would “try and provide protection to the American people even when disrespected by our chief executive and representatives in Congress.”

Despite the staff complaints, an FDA spokesperson told me that fewer people left the FDA from January to June of this year, when compared to last year. "Throughout and beyond the partial government shutdown, Agency leadership worked hard and continues to do so to ensure that employees knew that their jobs were important and that they were needed at their posts to make a difference in protecting and promoting the public health of Americans," the spokesperson added. 
 
And not all the emails were bad. I was also struck by the willingness of FDA employees not only to work without pay, but even to offer to donate their salaries and sick days to fellow FDA’ers in dire straits.
 
As one FDA’er put it: “All I want is to serve the Country and support my agency’s mission during these difficult times.”