Scoop: HHS email implies some NIH employees won't be paid during furlough after all.

UPDATE: I’ve edited the headline to reflect some nuance. I've also added some new information and context in the article below, which are in bold.

We have some breaking news that I believe we are first to report, right here in Inside Medicine. My thanks to the HHS employees who continue to bravely speak out. It is important that we amplify them. Thank you for your help doing that—by reading, sharing, and supporting this work.

Earlier today, some NIH employees received emails implying that they will not be paid during the shutdown. If that interpretation is correct, it would be an unexpected, and likely unlawful, change in federal government policy.

An NIH scientist shared with Inside Medicine both the original email he received when the shutdown began and the one he received today. With permission, I am posting slightly modified screenshots of both of those emails. Both emails were sent from the HHS deputy assistant secretary for human resources, Thomas J. Nagy, Jr, a figure who has often been associated with Trump-era federal employee terminations.

In the first email, dated October 1, the memorandum clearly stated that HHS employees would receive full pay for the entirety of the shutdown period once it ends—that is, paid furloughs.

The highlighted paragraph (see below) specifies that standard rates of pay would apply, and cited the relevant US code.

In the second email, dated October 30, but sent October 29, that paragraph had been replaced with new language, now stating that employees receiving the notice would be in “nonduty, nonpayment status,” and that recipients may not work (from anywhere) unless specifically recalled—that is, unpaid furloughs.

Update: Some NIH employees, including those I spoke to for this story, interpreted the second email to mean that they will not be paid, even after the shutdown ends. But an observer on Bluesky pointed out that a direct statement to that effect was not been made in that email, and that the non-duty, nonpayment status could be interpreted to apply only to the shutdown period itself, rather than backpay, which is a fair point.

I asked one of my initial sources and another HHS employee at another agency (not quoted in the original versions of this story) what they thought. Both believe that the language may have been intentionally vague. “I think it’s clear that they removed those sentences for a reason,” the HHS employee said. “The