Amid intense backlash, the head of the American Diabetes Association posted a video Wednesday apologizing for the organization’s decision Friday to forcefully remove five prominent diabetes scientists from the association’s annual meeting.
The scientists were lashed out for handing out copies of an April editorial published in the ADA’s own journal Diabetes Care, which sharply criticizes the Trump administration for the damage and destruction it is wreaking on biomedical research. The five scientists include Steven Kahn, professor of medicine at the University of Washington, editor-in-chief of Diabetes Care and co-author of the editorial. This also included former ADA President Desmond Schatz of the University of Florida.
The scientists were distributing the editorial outside the conference’s opening address, which was originally scheduled to be given by Jay Bhattacharya, the head of the National Institutes of Health under Trump. Bhattacharya canceled at the last minute and was replaced by senior NIH official Rick Woychik.
Within minutes of the editorial handing over, police reportedly escorted the scientists out of the conference, which was held in New Orleans. Police reportedly pushed at least one scientist, took all of their conference badges, and threatened to arrest them if they tried to return. Louisiana State Police later told the media that they acted at the request of the ADA. The ADA later excluded the five scientists from the rest of the conference.
In Wednesday’s video, ADA CEO Charles Henderson personally apologized to five scientists, including University of Minnesota pediatrician Professor Aaron Kelly; Justin Ryder of Northwestern University; And in addition to Kahn and Schatz, Iral Hirsch of the University of Washington.
“What happened doesn’t reflect who I am, what values I have, or the way I was raised,” Henderson said. “I will work hard to bring our community back together to build on the progress we have collectively made for those affected by diabetes.”
While the removal immediately shocked and angered members of the diabetes research community, Henderson’s video stands in stark contrast to the series of ADA statements over the past several days that tried to justify the decision. First, a media team for the ADA told MedPage Today that “these attendees were ejected by our onsite event security because they did not exhibit behavior consistent with this code of conduct for the conference”.
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