Police Remove Diabetes Care Editors From ADA Sessions in New Orleans Over Anti-Trump Editorial

Five scientists were removed from the American Diabetes Association’s annual scientific sessions at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center in New Orleans after handing out copies of an editorial published in Diabetes Care on 29 April 2026 criticizing the Trump administration’s dismantling of biomedical science.

“Five leading scientists were ousted from the annual meeting of the American Diabetes Association (ADA) in New Orleans on Friday”

Ars Technica

On 5 June 2026, police escorted the researchers out moments before the Trump-appointed director of the National Institutes of Health, Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, was scheduled to deliver the keynote address, but he cancelled at the last moment and a senior NIH adviser addressed the crowd instead.

Ars Technica

Dr. Steven Kahn, editor-in-chief of Diabetes Care, along with Dr. Aaron Kelly of the University of Minnesota and Dr. Justin Ryder of Northwestern Medicine, were among those removed, and the ADA later banned the ejected researchers from the remainder of the conference citing a code of conduct violation.

Kelly told reporters, "I was chest-bumped by a police officer several times," as video recorded by a reporter from MedPage Today showed an instance of him being shoved by a uniformed officer.

The editorial the group distributed was titled "Misguided brushes of a pen continue to dismantle and destroy biomedical research in the United States: We can no longer afford complacency and fear."

The ADA said the attendees were removed by onsite security for violating the conference code of conduct and that they were "given the opportunity to cease this behavior and chose not to."

Louisiana State Police spokesman Sgt. Ross Brennan confirmed troopers were requested by event organisers to assist in removing the individuals and that none of those removed were arrested, while the group said the confrontation continued after they complied and moved to a quieter section of the convention centre.

BusinessLine

In a statement shared with The Seattle Times, the ADA executive team wrote, "For the safety of everyone, we must take all demonstrations seriously," and said Kahn would not be permitted to participate in the rest of the conference scheduled to run through Monday.

Kahn said he was "willing to be arrested" after officers told him that if he put his feet inside the convention center again, he would be arrested, and he later called the association’s move a "serious mistake."

MedPage Today reported that Kelly described the incident as censorship, saying, "Censorship is real," and that the officers physically grabbed them and took their lanyards as they were forced out.

The dispute centered on biomedical research cuts described in the editorial and tied to a February 2026 report from Senator Bernie Sanders' Senate Health, Education, Labour and Pensions Committee finding that the NIH had terminated or frozen at least £450 million ($561 million) in research grants across four leading causes of death in America.

“Five scientists, including the editor-in-chief of America's leading diabetes journal, were removed from the field's premier annual conference after handing out a research editorial criticising the Trump administration's dismantling of biomedical science”

International Business Times UK

That same Senate report said £66 million ($83 million) had been cut from 68 diabetes research grants despite Congress having fully appropriated the funding, and it said those terminations disrupted 304 active clinical trials involving hundreds of thousands of patients, including 69 trials for children.

Senator Jon Ossoff warned in a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing that the administration's proposed FY26 budget would eliminate the CDC's entire diabetes data and research division outright, and the editorial the ejected researchers distributed argued that "There is an urgent need for all of us to bring attention to these destructive processes".

At the conference, Richard Woychik, a senior adviser to NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya, told the ADA audience, "I could have written the MAHA agenda," and said the MAHA strategy "harnesses NIH-wide innovation" while Rita Kalyani pressed him with a quote from Sen. Tammy Baldwin describing "the deliberate erosion of research institutions".

MedPage Today reported that the editorial criticized a requested 2027 budget seeking a $5 billion reduction to NIH and detailed impacts to diabetes research funding since January 2025, while the ADA maintained that the removed registrants violated the code of conduct and were escorted out by onsite event security.