FDA return-to-work mandate results in ‘absolute chaos’

Published March 17, 2025 9:23pm ET



Nearly 10,000 employees returned to the Food and Drug Administration’s headquarters in Maryland on Monday to what one worker described as a “Hunger Games-type situation” in which employees encountered packed parking lots, overflowing workspaces that lacked basic supplies, and long security lines.

The FDA ordered personnel to return to the office on Monday, a requirement outlined in President Donald Trump’s Inauguration Day executive order stating that “heads of all departments and agencies in the executive branch of government shall, as soon as practicable, take all necessary steps to terminate remote work arrangements and require employees to return to work in-person at their respective duty stations on a full-time basis, provided that the department and agency heads shall make exemptions they deem necessary.”

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