Why these former FDA officials left the agency

A year after U.S. DOGE Service cuts shook up the federal government, STAT’s FDA reporter Lizzy Lawrence has been speaking with former officials about their time at the agency. Two weeks ago, I hit the road with Lizzy to interview six of them about what drew them to the agency, the important work they did during their career there, and, ultimately, why they decided to leave during the second Trump administration. In a special road-trip edition of STATus Report, Lizzy and I travel around the leafy suburbs of Washington to bring you first-person testimonies, including the former director of the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, Richard Pazdur; Sheryl Lard-Whiteford, a leader in the FDA’s biologics center; and Julie Tierney, who worked on Operation Warp Speed. More from STAT: Become a subscriber: https://www.statnews.com/stat-plus/ Watch Full Episodes: https://www.youtube.com/@Statnews Newsletters: https://www.statnews.com/signup/ STAT events: https://www.statnews.com/stat-events/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/statnews Twitter: https://twitter.com/statnews Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/status_report_ig/ Flipboard: rb.gy/3xnsxr STAT Reports: https://rb.gy/rexfwj STAT eBooks: https://rb.gy/eme3h5 ABOUT STAT: Founded in 2015, STAT is a global digital media brand that focuses on delivering fast, deep, and tough-minded journalism about the life sciences industries to over six million monthly site visitors and an additional 20 million readers on the Apple News app. STAT takes you inside academic labs, biotech boardrooms, and political backrooms, casting a critical eye on scientific discoveries, scrutinizing corporate strategies, and chronicling the roiling battles for talent, money, and market share. With an award-winning newsroom, STAT provides indispensable insights and exclusive stories on the technologies, personalities, power brokers, and political forces driving massive changes in the life sciences industry — and a revolution in human health.