FDA approved a $250,000 Singapore work trip during government shutdown, records show

SINGAPORE — Sentosa Island boasts the luxury, five-star Ora and Michael hotels, with palm-tree-lined pools, lobbies flanked with luxury stores, and a casino that adjoins both hotels and buzzes with gamblers. The Singapore resort is also where a group of federal employees from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration were sent for a work trip in the final hours of the government shutdown. Internal FDA records obtained by CNBC show 31 agency staffers traveled to Singapore in mid-November for a conference of the International Council for Harmonisation of Technical Requirements for Pharmaceuticals for Human Use, or ICH — a trip...