Amid intense backlash, the head of the American Diabetes Association published a video Wednesday apologizing for the organization’s decision Friday to forcibly remove five leading diabetes scientists of the association’s annual meeting.
The scientists were expelled for handing over copies of an April editorial, published in the ADA’s own journal Diabetes Care, that harshly criticizes the Trump administration for the damage and destruction it is causing to biomedical research. Among the five scientists was Steven Kahn, a professor of medicine at the University of Washington, editor-in-chief of Diabetes Care and co-author of the editorial. It also included former ADA president Desmond Schatz of the University of Florida.
The scientists were distributing the editorial outside of the conference’s keynote address, which was originally scheduled to be delivered by Jay Bhattacharya, director 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 distribute the editorial, police reportedly escorted the scientists out of the conference, which was held in New Orleans. Police reportedly pushed at least one scientist, took away all of their conference credentials, and threatened to arrest them if they tried to return. Louisiana State Police later told the media who acted at the request of the ADA. The ADA subsequently excluded the five scientists from the rest of the conference.
In Wednesday’s video, ADA CEO Charles Henderson personally apologized to the five scientists, including Aaron Kelly, a professor of pediatrics 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 happened does not reflect who I am, the values I have or the way I was raised,” Henderson said. “I will work hard to bring our community back together and build on the progress we have collectively made for those affected by diabetes.”
While the dismissal immediately surprised and outraged members of the diabetes research community, Henderson’s video stands in stark contrast to the series of statements from the ADA in recent days that attempted to justify the decision. At first, an ADA media team told MedPage today that “these attendees were escorted out of the event by our on-site security staff because they demonstrated behavior inconsistent with this code of conduct” for the conference.
