ADA Members Demand Resignations Over Meeting Ejections
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- American Diabetes Association security ejected five physicians and scientists from its annual meeting earlier this year after they distributed reprints of an opinion piece harshly critical of Trump administration efforts to cut federal science funding
- The scheduled keynote speaker was NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya, who subsequently bowed out and was replaced by a deputy
- More than 200 ADA members are calling for top officials to resign, an investigation into the meeting incident, a full apology to the ejected attendees, and restoration of editorial independence at Diabetes Care
- The ADA has apologized for the incident and says it is awaiting a report from its audit and governance committee
- The authors contrast the episode with 2015, when the ADA won their inaugural "Doing the Right Thing" award for fighting a defamation suit by researcher Mario Saad over expressions of concern placed on his papers in the journal Diabetes
- ADA CEO Charles Henderson said in his apology that the organization would "continue to advocate for robust NIH funding" and support the pursuit of scientific discovery
Why it matters: The ADA's decision to eject members handing out a policy-critical op-ed — at an event where NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya was set to speak — suggests the organization is preemptively curbing dissent to protect its relationship with federal funders, even as its CEO publicly pledges to defend NIH funding.
