The 16-day US government shutdown that started on 1 October had serious effects on researchers, says a report by the US Office of Management and Budget (see go.nature.com/le3tcd). Some 98% of US National Science Foundation employees, two-thirds of employees of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and three-quarters of US National Institutes of Health (NIH) employees were placed on mandatory leave, it says. Many NIH researchers could not enter their labs in Bethesda, Maryland. For early-career scientists, a few weeks' lost work “is a substantial percentage of their research experience”, says Michael Gottesman, NIH deputy director for intramural research.