The American Diabetes Association just made itself a cautionary tale about what happens when you confuse a scientific conference with a politically protected zone.
Five leading scientists were escorted out of the ADA’s annual meeting in New Orleans on Friday. Their offense? Handing out copies of an editorial published in the ADA’s own journal, Diabetes Care, that sharply criticized the Trump administration’s ongoing attacks on scientific research.
Let that sink in for a moment.
The five included Steven Kahn, professor of medicine at the University of Washington and editor-in-chief of Diabetes Care, who co-authored the editorial. Also ousted: former ADA president Desmond Schatz from the University of Florida, Aaron Kelly from the University of Minnesota, Justin Ryder from Northwestern University, and Irl Hirsch from the University of Washington. All were handing out reprints outside a room where NIH director Jay Bhattacharya had been scheduled to speak. (Bhattacharya cancelled; another NIH official took his place.)
“They physically grabbed us, forced us out of the conference center, and now are telling us we can no longer attend this meeting,” Kelly told MedPage Today, which first reported the incident. “They’re taking our lanyards. It really has come to this in America. Censorship is real. America needs to stand up.”
The ADA claims the scientists violated the organization’s code of conduct, which prohibits “disorderly or disruptive conduct such as protesting.” But here’s where it gets awkward: the scientists weren’t screaming slogans or blocking hallways. They were quietly distributing reprints of an article published in the ADA’s own publication, at the ADA’s own conference. The videos posted by MedPage Today don’t show anything resembling disruption.
Some are questioning how the ADA can claim these actions violated their code when the editorial in question ran in their own journal. The organization’s leadership actually added a disclaimer insisting the ADA had nothing to do with developing or writing the article. But that feels like a parent disowning a child after the child says something unpopular at a family reunion.
This incident lands at a collision point between science and politics that feels increasingly difficult to ignore. The editorial itself pulled no punches: “It is no longer enough to stand idly by or work behind the scenes with lawmakers,” the authors wrote. “Now is the time to recognize and fight to reverse the spiraling fall of the United States of America as the foremost nation in health care innovation.”
The backlash was swift on Twitter/X and BlueSky, and the editorial’s page views skyrocketed. There’s something darkly ironic about an organization dedicated to fighting a disease that affects millions choosing to silence the very scientists who help fight that disease.
This isn’t just about one conference or one editorial. It raises bigger questions about whether scientific societies can maintain credibility when they start acting more like corporate entities afraid of political consequences than organizations dedicated to advancing knowledge. The line between maintaining order and suppressing dissent is thin, and the ADA just walked right up to it.
Scientists getting booted from a medical conference for sharing peer-reviewed research. That’s the world we’re living in now.
