Diabetes researchers ejected from ADA conference for sharing editorial critical of Trump

Five prominent scientists, including Diabetes Care editor-in-chief Steven Kahn and former ADA president Desmond Schatz, were physically removed from the American Diabetes Association’s annual meeting in New Orleans for distributing reprints of an April editorial that criticized the Trump administration’s treatment of scientific research. They were handing out the materials outside a session originally scheduled to feature NIH director Jay Bhattacharya, who cancelled and sent a deputy in his place.

The ADA defended the removals by citing its code of conduct, which prohibits protesting and other forms of disruptive behavior at its events. Organizers said security escorted the scientists out only after they declined to stop. The ejected researchers framed the incident as straightforward censorship, with University of Minnesota’s Aaron Kelly urging fellow scientists and physicians to push back against what he described as an erosion of free expression in American scientific discourse.