American Diabetes Association apologizes after ejecting scientists over Trump criticism

At a glance:

• The American Diabetes Association apologized Wednesday after police removed five scientists from its annual meeting in New Orleans on Friday.
• The scientists were distributing an April Diabetes Care editorial criticizing the Trump administration’s damage to biomedical research.
• ADA CEO Charles Henderson apologized to Steven Kahn, Desmond Schatz, Aaron Kelly, Justin Ryder, and Irl Hirsch after the backlash.

What happened at the ADA annual meeting

Amid intense backlash, the head of the American Diabetes Association posted a video Wednesday apologizing for the organization’s decision on Friday to forcefully remove five leading diabetes scientists from the association’s annual meeting. The incident took place in New Orleans and quickly drew attention because the scientists were not protesting a rival event; they were distributing copies of an April editorial published in the ADA’s own journal, Diabetes Care. That editorial sharply criticized the Trump administration for the “damage and destruction” it is described as wreaking on biomedical research.

The five scientists included:

• Steven Kahn, professor of medicine at the University of Washington, editor-in-chief of Diabetes Care, and a co-author of the editorial
• Desmond Schatz, former ADA President of the University of Florida
• Aaron Kelly, pediatrics professor at the University of Minnesota
• Justin Ryder of Northwestern University
• Irl Hirsch, also of the University of Washington

The scientists were distributing the editorial outside the conference’s opening speech, which was originally scheduled to be given by Jay Bhattacharya, head of the National Institutes of Health under Trump. Bhattacharya canceled at the last minute, and senior NIH official Rick Woychik took his place. Within minutes of beginning to hand out the editorial, police reportedly escorted the scientists out of the conference.

Police action and the ADA’s initial response

Louisiana State Police later told media that they acted at the request of the ADA. Reports from the scene described police shoving at least one scientist, taking all of the scientists’ conference badges, and threatening to arrest them if they tried to return. The ADA subsequently barred the five scientists from the rest of the conference, turning a security incident at a professional meeting into a wider dispute over scientific expression and conference governance.

At first, a media team for the ADA told MedPage Today that “these attendees were escorted out by our onsite event security because they demonstrated behavior not consistent with this code of conduct” for the conference. That explanation framed the removal as an enforcement action under the event’s rules rather than as a response to the editorial’s political content. Over the next several days, however, the organization’s statements drew mounting criticism because they appeared to justify a decision that many researchers saw as punitive.

The apology and the editorial at the center

In the Wednesday video, ADA CEO Charles Henderson personally apologized to the five scientists, including Aaron Kelly, pediatrics professor at the University of Minnesota; Justin Ryder of Northwestern University; and Irl Hirsch, also of the University of Washington, in addition to Kahn and Schatz. “What transpired is not reflective of who I am, the values I hold, 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.”

The apology marked a clear shift from the ADA’s earlier posture. Henderson’s video is in sharp contrast to the ADA’s series of statements over the past several days that tried to justify the decision. It also puts the organization in the position of explaining how a dispute over an editorial in its own journal became a police removal at its flagship gathering.

The editorial itself is central because it came from inside the ADA ecosystem rather than from an outside advocacy group. Diabetes Care is the association’s journal, and Steven Kahn is both its editor-in-chief and a co-author of the piece. For researchers, that detail matters because it makes the conflict look less like a disagreement with an external critic and more like a rupture within the institution responsible for convening the diabetes community.

Why it matters for the diabetes research community

The backlash was immediate among members of the diabetes research community, who were stunned and outraged by the removal of prominent scientists from the meeting. The incident is especially sensitive because professional societies are expected to host debate, not suppress criticism of government policy related to biomedical research. Ejecting five leading researchers for distributing an editorial has raised questions about whether conference codes of conduct can be used to police scientific speech.

The ADA annual meeting is one of the main venues where diabetes researchers, clinicians, educators, and advocates exchange new findings and shape priorities for patient care. Removing scientists from that setting can affect trust well beyond the individuals involved, because conferences depend on participation from editors, society leaders, university researchers, and federal health officials. The last-minute change involving Bhattacharya and Woychik also underscored how tightly the meeting was tied to national biomedical policy at the moment the dispute unfolded.

What to watch next

Henderson’s promise to rebuild the community will likely be tested by what the ADA does next. The organization has already acknowledged the harm through a direct apology, but researchers may look for a fuller account of who requested the police action, why the scientists’ badges were removed, and whether the ADA will revisit its conference conduct rules. Those questions matter because the public explanation so far has focused on behavior at the event rather than the editorial’s criticism of the Trump administration.

For the diabetes field, the next watch point is whether the apology becomes a repair process or remains a statement without operational change. The scientists named in the apology include editors, former society leaders, and university faculty whose work reaches patients through research, clinical practice, and public health policy. If the ADA can clarify the sequence of events and rebuild trust, the incident could become a cautionary case about protecting scientific debate inside professional organizations; if it cannot, the damage may extend far beyond one annual meeting.