Overview
- Police and onsite security escorted five diabetes researchers out of the American Diabetes Association annual meeting after they handed out printed copies of a Diabetes Care editorial that criticized President Trump’s administration and proposed NIH budget cuts.
- Video obtained by MedPage Today and published by multiple outlets shows a plainclothes security agent seizing papers and an officer shoving researcher Aaron Kelly during the confrontation on June 5 at the New Orleans convention center.
- The ADA says the five registrants were removed for violating the conference code of conduct that attendees agree to at registration and that they were offered a chance to stop the behavior before being escorted out.
- Lead author Steven Kahn, the editor in chief of Diabetes Care, says he was barred from presenting, was warned he could be arrested if he tried to re-enter, and that ADA leadership added a disclaimer distancing the organization from the editorial.
- The editorial targeted a requested 2027 federal budget that would cut roughly $5 billion from NIH and detailed changes at HHS and NIH since January 2025, prompting wider calls from researchers for the ADA to protect open scientific discussion and raising questions about the effects on biomedical research funding and debate.