It’s the kind of story that makes you do a double-take. Five respected scientists, including the editor-in-chief of a major medical journal, got physically removed from a professional conference for handing out copies of an editorial. An editorial, mind you, that was already published in the journal they were supposedly associated with.
According to reporting from MedPage Today, the incident went down at the American Diabetes Association’s annual meeting in New Orleans last Friday. The five scientists were kicked out while attempting to distribute reprints of an editorial published in Diabetes Care on April 29. The editorial sharply criticized the Trump administration’s attacks on scientific research.
Steven Kahn, professor of medicine at the University of Washington and the editor-in-chief of Diabetes Care, was among those ousted. Also ousted: former ADA president Desmond Schatz, Aaron Kelly from the University of Minnesota, Justin Ryder from Northwestern University, and Irl Hirsch from the University of Washington.
They were handing out the reprints outside a room where NIH director Jay Bhattacharya had been scheduled to speak. Bhattacharya cancelled, and another NIH official filled in.
Aaron Kelly had this to say to MedPage Today: “They physically grabbed us, forced us out of the conference center, and now are telling us we can no longer attend this meeting. They’re taking our lanyards. It really has come to this in America. Censorship is real.”
The ADA, for its part, confirmed that five registered scientists were removed and claimed they had violated the organization’s code of conduct for conferences. Their statement said the scientists were given “the opportunity to cease this behavior and chose not to.”
Now here’s where it gets genuinely tricky. The ADA’s code of conduct does say that “disorderly or disruptive conduct such as protesting, will not be tolerated.” And you could argue that handing out reprints just before an NIH official takes the stage is, at minimum, a form of protest. But you could just as easily argue that distributing a peer-reviewed editorial at a medical conference falls squarely under the banner of scientific discourse. The editorial wasn’t some leaked memo or anonymous pamphlet. It was published in the ADA’s own journal, at the ADA’s own conference.
The whole thing raises uncomfortable questions about where the line gets drawn between vigorous scientific debate and conduct that deserves expulsion.
Some context: the editorial itself is a passionate plea for scientists to stop staying quiet in the face of political pressure on research. “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’s status as the foremost nation in health care innovation.”
The backlash online was swift and intense, with criticism flooding both Twitter/X and BlueSky. If the goal was to silence these scientists, the opposite happened. The editorial saw a sharp spike in page views.
Kahn has written to the ADA seeking re-admittance, since he’s slated to speak and chair a session at the conference. The ADA added a disclaimer to the editorial stating the organization had nothing to do with developing or writing the article.
What strikes me most about this story is how it illustrates the growing tension between institutional neutrality and the personal convictions of researchers. These aren’t undergrads causing a scene. These are senior scientists with decades of credentials, the editor-in-chief of the very journal hosting the event.
When a professional organization decides that distributing a published editorial is grounds for removal, it’s worth asking what kind of scientific exchange that organization actually welcomes. The ADA has every right to enforce its code of conduct, but the optics of dragging out a Nobel-caliber researcher for handing out reprints is, to put it mildly, not a good look.
Whether you view this as a clear case of censorship or as a necessary enforcement of professional boundaries likely depends on where you sit. But one thing is certain: the conversation about it isn’t going away.
