Troubling new details emerge on diabetes ouster controversy

Last month, we reported on a troubling incident at the annual meeting of the American Diabetes Association (ADA) in New Orleans. On June 5, five leading scientists were ousted for handing out copies of an editorial, published in the journal Diabetes Care (an ADA journal) in April, sharply criticizing the Trump administration’s ongoing attacks on scientific research. There was a public outcry and (eventually) a personal apology from the ADA’s CEO for the heavy-handed response, but it seems the organization has not yet learned its lesson. The deputy editors of Diabetes Care have posted an editorial and seven accompanying opinion articles to a preprint server—handily contained in a single PDF file—that they say the ADA has refused to publish. Several troubling new details are included in the articles, including an accusation that ADA leadership knew in advance that members would be handing out copies of the editorial and deliberately set up an ambush by venue security and local police. That decision, in turn, might be due to a simmering tensions connected to a session organized the year before. ADA leadership was provided with the articles in advance of publication with an invitation to simultaneously publish their response. “The ADA’s response was to refuse to publish these articles,” the deputy editors wrote. “We are speaking out because it is unusual and unacceptable for a medical society to work at cross purposes with its members and its editors. The ADA has already tried to restrict editorial freedom once before related to our raising awareness of what is happening in Washington, DC, and, in particular, with the dismantling of the National Institutes of Health. … A wrong occurred in New Orleans that the ADA has not addressed. There remain open questions surrounding the events of June 5th. It is because we wish to heal and come together following this difficult situation that we believe it is important that these articles be read and these voices heard.”