> Regardless of it actually happening or not it looks terrible. This should never happen

I understand the problem you're describing, but consider what you're asking for: people with competence and experience should be barred from taking jobs that require competence and experience? Non-competes have the same problem.

Think of it like a judge. You should be recusing yourself of anything that looks improper.

Public servants have a higher standard they need to adhere to and they simply aren't, it is endemic in the public space.

Public servants are not compensated for that higher standard.

I’m not “compensated” financially when I pick up litter I encounter when walking around but that doesn’t dissuade me from doing so.

When picking up trash substantially impacts your lifetime earnings, that might matter.

I am not in this field, but I guess that as an employee at the FDA you approve drugs for all the big pharma companies, which aside from the FDA are the major employers that value their skillset. It may be that if you prohibit FDA employees to transition to one of the big pharma companies, you're telling them that they can either work at the FDA forever or have to leave their field

Yes, there is a price to pay for being a public servant.

You realize they're not actually servants, right?

"Take a job with the Fed, sign up for a lifetime of lower income so that HN can nod sagely about avoiding the appearance of impropriety" is a recipe to get no one to ever work for the government.

The attitude they aren’t servants to the public is part of the problem

“Hand in approving” is an important factor: approval is such a complex process no one person is really decisive, except possibly at the very very beginning.

Drug companies used to hire multiple trucks simply to deliver their submissions.