The head of the American Diabetes Association wrote in the background of strong conflict a video On Wednesday, the organization apologized for the decision to forcibly evacuate on Friday five leading diabetes scientists from the association’s annual meeting.
The scientists were fired for distributing copies of an April editorial published in the ADA’s own journal, Diabetes Care, which sharply criticized the Trump administration for the damage and destruction it has caused to biomedical research. Among the five scientists was Stephen Kahn, a professor of medicine at the University of Washington, editor-in-chief of the journal Diabetes Care, and co-author of the editorial. This included former University of Florida ADA President Desmond Schatz.
The scientists originally published the editorial outside of Trump’s opening speech at the conference, which was originally scheduled to be given by Jay Bhattacharya, head of the National Institutes of Health. Bhattacharya canceled at the last minute, and senior NIH official Rick Woychik took his place.
According to information, a few minutes after the editorial was published, the police removed the scientists from the conference in New Orleans. Police reportedly shoved at least one scientist, took all of their conference badges, and threatened to arrest them if they tried to return. Later, the Louisiana State Police told the media that they are acting as required by the ADA. The ADA subsequently barred the five scientists from the remainder of the conference.
In a video Wednesday, ADA CEO Charles Henderson personally apologized to five scientists, including University of Minnesota pediatrics professor Aaron Kelly; Justin Ryder of Northwestern University; In addition to Kahn and Schatz, Irl Hirsch from the University of Washington.
“What happened doesn’t reflect who I am, the values I have or the way I was raised,” Henderson said. “I will work hard to bring our community together to build on the progress we’ve made together for people with diabetes.”
While the firing immediately stunned and angered members of the diabetes research community, Henderson’s video stands in stark contrast to statements the ADA has made over the past few days trying to justify the decision. First, the media group for the ADA This was reported by MedPage Today For the conference, “these participants were escorted by our event security due to behavior inconsistent with this code of conduct.”
