Regular readers of this blog might have noticed that, over the last few weeks, I’ve been trying to return to topics a lot more commonly discussed on this blog before the pandemic. In particular, I was trying to get back to some topics that I used to like to cover before Donald Trump was elected to the Presidency again in 2024, appointed a rabid antivax activist named Robert F. Kennedy Jr., to run the Department of Health and Human Services, and, in general, set the very worst people (e.g. “Podcast Jay” Bhattarcharya, Marty Makary, Tracy Beth Høeg, Vinay Prasad, and their ilk) loose systematically dismantling federal public health, medical, and biomedical research programs, all while trying to eliminate as many vaccines as possible before President Trump’s term ends in January 2029. It worked for a while, and I managed to do posts on acupuncture, its dubious scientific justifications, functional medicine, revisionist history about the FDA, the resurrection of a very old antivax trope, and more “integrative medicine” exaggeration of how “powerful” placebo effects are. True, a lot of it was framed around the “make America healthy again” (MAHA) movement, but what is MAHA but the repackaging and fusion of the antivax movement with “health freedom” and “integrative medicine” quackery? All the same old stuff that we used to warn about pre-2020 is bubbling to the surface again. So it was this week that I wanted to do the same, based on an interesting study of publishing patterns in “integrative medicine,” but then I saw these headlines about a kerfuffle late last week at the annual meeting of the American Diabetes Association (ADA):
- Police Remove Diabetes Experts From Conference for Distributing Critique of Trump Administration (New York Times)
- Diabetes researchers ejected from conference after criticizing White House (Washington Post)
- Police remove UW diabetes researcher and other experts from conference (Seattle Times)
- Video: Police Tussle With Diabetes Experts at ADA Meeting (MedPage Today)
- Scientists ejected from diabetes conference for distributing journal reprints (Ars Technica)
Let’s just say that this incident, including the Streisand effect that it provoked, tells us something about the current regime running the biomedical science apparatus of the federal government. First, however, let’s look at what happened. Particularly remarkable are the identities of some of the scientists ejected and the nature of the editorial that they were distributing. First, one of the researchers was University of Washington professor Steven Khan, who is the editor-in-chief of Diabetes Care, the flagship journal of the ADA and winner of the ADA’s Banting Medal for Scientific Achievement Award just last year. Another, Desmond Schatz of the University of Florida, Gainesville, has been involved with the ADA for decades and even served as President of Medicine & Science for the ADA in 2016. In other words, these aren’t just random diabetes experts attending the yearly ADA conference. They are the crême de la crême of American diabetes researchers and heavily involved with the organization. As for the article? Entitled Misguided Brushes of a Pen Continue to Dismantle and Destroy Biomedical Research in the United States: We Can No Longer Afford Complacency and Fear. We Must All Act Now!, it was first-authored by Dr. Kahn and published in—you guessed it!—Diabetes Care in April 2026. Here’s how the NYT described the incident, which occurred on Friday:
Several diabetes experts were escorted out of an influential medical conference by the police on Friday after they handed out copies of an editorial criticizing the Trump administration’s attacks on scientific research.
The incident took place Friday morning at a meeting of the American Diabetes Association in New Orleans, shortly before Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, director of the National Institutes of Health, was scheduled to speak. An organizer announced just before Dr. Bhattacharya’s session that he would no longer be speaking; a senior adviser at the N.I.H. took his place.
The researchers were handing out copies of the editorial, recently published in the association’s flagship journal, which detailed the effects of N.I.H. cuts and other Trump administration actions on diabetes research and outcomes, when security staff asked them to step outside and tried to take away the papers, said Aaron Kelly, a professor of pediatrics at the University of Minnesota who was among the researchers escorted out. A video taken by MedPage Today, which first reported the news, shows a tense confrontation, including a man in uniform putting his hands on an expert.
The researchers re-entered the convention center from another entrance, but were confronted again by security staff and police officers.
“They were clearly trying to intimidate us,” Dr. Kelly said. The police told the researchers they would be trespassing and would be arrested if they set foot on the premises again, said Justin Ryder, a pediatric obesity researcher at Northwestern Medicine who had been handing out copies of the editorial.
It was also noted that some of the researchers were scheduled to present later in the meeting over the weekend, but had their badges taken away and were told that they could no longer attend the conference, telling them, as related by Dr. Kahn, “Then the police officer told me if we put our feet inside the convention center again, we’d be arrested.” Indeed, according to MedPage Today:
Kahn said he has written to ADA to be allowed to re-enter the meeting as he is due to give a talk, present a poster, and chair a session.
Interesting. “Podcast Jay” Bhattacharya was supposed to speak, but apparently changed plans at the last minute, sufficiently late that the announcement was made right before the talk. One wonders why, given how boldly he has constantly portrayed himself a free speech “martyr” and “warrior.” One wonders if he suspected that there might be a protest at his talk, one does. Be that as it may, the contrast between what Podcast Jay and his cronies currently engaged in the destruction of federal biomedicine preach with respect to free speech and what they practice, led me to ask: Will Podcast Jay stand up for these scientists who were clearly brutally censored? Think about it. From the news reports, it appears that ADA organizers didn’t just ask these scientists to stop distributing the Diabetes Care editorial critical of the Trump administration. They had convention center security do it, but they also had the Louisiana State Police assist in ejecting the scientists:
Louisiana State Police trooper Kyle Wagner said that troopers working a security detail “were requested by event organizers to assist with removing several individuals from the event. Troopers assisted by escorting the individuals from the private event, no arrests were made, and all individuals left peacefully.
Seriously, Dr. Bhattacharya, if this isn’t suppression of free speech by a medical association (like the ones you complained about during the pandemic) I don’t know what is.
So far, as of yesterday evening, all I hear is silence from Podcast Jay and his fellow free speech “martyrs.” I wonder why. After all, Podcast Jay won Reason’s Flame of Freedom Award in 2024 for, as Dr. Howard puts it, “his perseverance and willingness to bravely make more YouTube videos bemoaning the fate of his lost YouTube video” that YouTube had taken down, all while dedicating his award to the “millions of people censored in the name of public health.” (“Millions” sounds like quite the exaggeration to me.) You’d think he’d be outraged at this obvious censorship of dissent about the Trump administration science policy, even if it wasn’t the government directly doing it.
So far, crickets.
The ADA versus its own scientists over Trump science policy
Since the pandemic landed in the US six years ago, the constant refrain from those now in charge of US federal medical and scientific programs has been that the brave maverick doctors who spread COVID-19 misinformation and disinformation were unfairly and brutally “censored,” their “free speech” trampled upon ruthlessly by the the federal government, social media platforms, and the medical profession. While you and I know that what was really happening is that these contrarians, cranks, and quacks were trying to reframe any criticism of the misinformation that they were spreading (and criticism of them for spreading it), no matter how valid, as “suppression of speech” and “censorship.”
In fairness, there were efforts by social media platforms to rein in blatant misinformation and by state medical boards and professional societies to impose consequences on physicians who used their professional standing to spread health misinformation and disinformation. Intellectually honest people can—and should—even have good faith debates about the circumstances in an (ostensibly) free society under which such initiatives are appropriate and how far they should go. Of course, good faith debate about such measures was never what COVID contrarians have been about. If there’s one consistent trait shared by all of these free speech “martyrs,” it’s that they disingenuously confuse and conflate freedom of speech with freedom from criticism of their speech and from any consequences due to their having exercised their free speech. Unfortunately for them, that’s not how free speech works. They want to be brave martyrs and heroes in their own mind, warriors for what is generally recognized as a common good: Freedom of speech. Yet, they seem to think that they—and, as you will see—only they should suffer no consequences for their speech. Remember, the First Amendment says nothing about societal consequences one might experience due to what you say. It only says that the government can’t censor or punish you for that speech, with certain very limited exceptions.
Since Donald Trump assumed the Presidency again a year and a half ago and “free speech martyrs” like Podcast Jay Bhattacharya have ascended to the highest echelons of power in the federal biomedical apparatus. Some of them, such as Vinay Prasad, Marty Makary, and Tracy Beth Høeg soon found that it was far easier to take to podcasts and Substack to criticize public health interventions during a crisis than it is to actually do the job, all while spreading revisionist history of the pandemic. Our very own Dr. Jonathan Howard has repeatedly—and justifiably—mocked these self-important clowns for their arrogance and seeming assumption that just proposing things like “protecting the vulnerable,” reopening schools, and reopening businesses during a pandemic was the same thing as actually doing them.
First, let’s look at the editorial that these diabetes scientists were handing out to meeting attendees. Basically, it levels a lot of the same criticisms at Trump administration policy that we here at SBM have been making, for instance, here the editorial complains about exactly what I discussed last week, the administration’s move to shift on-the-ground decision-making about which grant applications are funded from scientists selected for their expertise to political appointees, while downgrading the peer review process in, for example, study sections run by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) from being the most important determining factor in which grant applications receive funding to being merely “advisory,” easily overruled by political appointees
Quoth Kahn et al:
At an administrative level, each NIH institute has a medical advisory council responsible for providing oversight and guidance to its staff. Each institute’s advisory council represents a second level of peer review and acts as the ultimate arbiter for the agency’s scientific and legal integrity. Each institute’s advisory council also provides approval for “concept clearance,” which is required to launch new research initiatives. Further, these medical advisory councils have a fiduciary responsibility to ensure the American public’s tax dollars are properly expended by reviewing and approving each institute’s grant funding pay plan, thereby ensuring funding of the most innovative and impactful basic, clinical, and translational research. Membership on these committees, which comprise subject matter experts from academia and nonprofit organizations, has finite terms, after which members are either reappointed or replaced. In the past year, neither has occurred, allowing the Trump administration to impose its political agenda with few questions asked. Since mid-2025, observations suggest the appointment process, which has included traditional nonpartisan vetting, is taking a worrisome turn and is now transitioning to more direct oversight by HHS leadership. This transition is leading to significant and likely intentional delays in appointments, resulting in some institutes’ councils operating at only one-third capacity and many councils with massive backlogs in completing their responsibilities. In addition, the administration appears to be shifting membership expertise away from an academic and scientific focus to reflect broader administration priorities and including political appointees who frequently have no subject matter expertise. A consequence of these changes is that the grant cycle is significantly slower and oversight of grant funding is no longer a required administrative step; it is now a deliberate policy alignment tool to ensure new research closely mirrors specific administrative political interests. As a result, meritorious scientific projects that aim to improve the lives of all Americans are not being funded. All of this is in line with what Dr. Francis Collins recently said: “Mix politics and science, you get politics. You kind of lose everything else.” (7).
This editorial was published a couple of months ago. It was just last week that OMB Director Russell Vought published proposed rules covering how government grants are funded that codify requirements that grants “align with administration priorities”; that peer review be considered “advisory” and not the primary determining factor in grant-issuing decisions; and that political appointees have the final say over which grants are funded. While it is true that every administration determines what its broad science priorities are and what sort of research that it wants to fund, historically since World War II the actual determination of what constitutes good science worthy of being funded has been (mostly) left to the scientists on the study sections that peer review the grant applications and issue them priority scores based on scientific merit and then the councils of scientists that rank the grants based on priority scores and, generally, fund the top-scoring grants, with some wiggle room for grants of special interest to receive priority treatment based on factors other than peer review. Let’s just put it this way. Even Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush never went anywhere near this far directly inserting political appointees into granular scientific decision making.
The editorial, as SBM did, also noted that the mass cancellation of grants early in the Trump administration because the “Department of Government Efficiency” (DOGE) thought they had a wife of the dreaded “diversity, equity, and inclusion” (DEI) was catastrophic, but also pointed out something that, I now realize, I haven’t emphasized enough:
Another new tactic is starting to severely hamper the ability of the NIH’s institutes to foster high-impact science. The plan, which is currently being instituted, reduces the number of Notices of Funding Opportunities (NOFOs) being issued. Over the first 13 months since Donald Trump’s return to the White House, NIH has issued only 84 NOFOs, compared with 787 the year before (8); this represents an 89% reduction. Examination of funding activity using NIH RePORTER data from the start of the current fiscal year on 1 October 2025 to the end of February 2026 reveals a truly troubling trend. This report, issued by the Association of American Universities, compared this fiscal year 2026 period to that of each of the first 5 months of 2021–2024 (9). It identified that the current number of grant awards has been reduced by about 66%, from nearly 3,000 to less than 1,000. In turn, this has reduced the research money provided to investigators by 54%, from just over $1.3 billion to about $600 million.
Why is this consequential for science overall and for diabetes research? NOFOs, an umbrella term that includes Program Announcements and Requests for Applications, encourage investigators to submit applications for a particular subject matter determined to be high priority by an institute’s scientific staff. Aside from the impact of the concerns of reduced grant funding laid out above, there are other significant core issues and implications for fewer NOFOs that include efficient oversight and scientific progress as prime examples. Further, and enormously important, while these calls for NOFOs used to be approved by each institute’s medical advisory council, approval now rests in the hands of the NIH Director’s office and HHS, the NIH’s parent agency, resulting in severe delays or even disapprovals. Furthermore, with fewer specific NOFOs being approved, more researchers are funneled into general pools, providing fewer opportunities to focus on specific gaps and needs identified by NIH.
This issue might be a bit too “inside baseball,” as we sometimes put it; in other words, too much into the weeds of the details of how the NIH works when it determines funding priorities. Let’s just say that, instead of scientific staff of each Institute within the NIH determining funding priorities and being allowed to issue NOFOs, the current system regresses everything to the mean, in terms of the importance of various areas of research, while allowing the political appointees much freer rein to determine what areas of research are priorities. Under MAHA, one can easily perceive how pseudoscience- and antivax-oriented research could be prioritized over the sorts of research projects important to understanding and treating diabetes that used to be encouraged through NOFOs.
Then, of course, the editorial correctly points out how, even though Congress has rejected this policy, the administration keeps trying to make massive cuts in funding to the NIH, revealing its true aim, the evisceration of government-funded research as an area that had been (mostly) protected from raw partisan politics in a norm going back 80 years. Similarly, the editorial notes that the administration is cutting back on multicenter clinical trials and overall center grants, even though historically these have been very successful. This one hit home for me, because I am faculty at an NCI-designated comprehensive cancer center, which is the result of—you guessed it!—a center grant. There are currently 57 NCI-designated comprehensive cancer centers, whose Cancer Center Support Grants (sometimes called “core grants”) fund them; unsurprisingly, they are considered the “best of the best” when it comes to clinical care and cancer research. Do I worry about what this administration might do to cancer center grants? You bet I do, just as much as Dr. Kahn and colleagues are concerned about center grants that have funded Diabetes Research Centers, Centers for Diabetes Translation Research, Cystic Fibrosis Research and Translation Centers, Nutrition Obesity Research Centers, and Mouse Metabolic Phenotyping Centers.
The editorial concludes with a call to action:
Given the proposed budget cuts and the reduction in opportunities for scientists with appropriate expertise to continue their work and drive new science, we as clinicians, scientists, and U.S. citizens call on members of all communities in our country to make their thoughts known. While we have focused this editorial on diabetes, the threat is not limited to this disease. The proposed changes could affect progress for every disease and every American. There is an urgent need for all of us to bring attention to these destructive processes and halt them before the ongoing and proposed dissolution and destruction of critical components of our biomedical research infrastructure are completed. Enough is enough! We call on all concerned citizens of our beloved country to contact their congressional representatives to declare their alarm about what is happening at HHS. We also request that all organizations established to ensure the health and welfare of U.S. citizens clearly and loudly make their voices heard and declare their alarm about what is happening at HHS. It is no longer enough to stand idly by or work behind the scenes with lawmakers. Moreover, it is no longer appropriate to fret about political backlash. Now is the time to recognize and fight to reverse the spiraling fall of the United States of America’s status as the foremost nation in health care innovation. As a nation, we must continue to believe in ensuring better health for all.
A few brushes of a pen, some clearly visible through budget requests, others less so through internal machinations, are rapidly destroying what generations have built. We can no longer afford complacency and fear. We must all act now!
I can’t argue with this sentiment, although I fear that it might already be too late. The damage done in just the last year and a half will arguably take decades to repair, if it is ever repaired at all. Whether you believe it’s too late or not, however, the basic message of the editorial that Dr. Kahn and colleagues were passing out to attendees of the ADA annual conference was basically a recounting of the damage that this administration is doing to the federal biomedical research infrastructure and a call to action to oppose it.
Why did the ADA censor scientists so bluntly?
As I read the stories about this incident, a question kept bubbling up in my mind: Why on earth would the ADA, a medical and scientific professional society dedicated to the study and treatment of diabetes, do something like this? The reasons that they gave when reporters started contacting them were not encouraging:
The ADA confirmed to MedPage Today that five registered scientists had been removed from the meeting, claiming the scientists had violated the organization’s code of conduct for conferences. “These attendees were escorted out by our onsite event security because they demonstrated behavior not consistent with this code of conduct,” the ADA media team said in a statement. “They were respectfully given the opportunity to cease this behavior and chose not to which is why they were escorted out.”
“All attendees will conduct themselves in a professional and respectful manner, free from any form of discrimination, harassment, or intimidation,” the code of conduct states. “Inappropriate conduct, including but not limited to harassment; threatening or unwelcome physical or verbal actions; or disorderly or disruptive conduct such as protesting, will not be tolerated.”
After all, as PZ Myers put it:
The order refusing to allow the distribution of papers is pure bullshit. It is common practice for researchers to bring along copies of their relevant papers and hand them out. I’ve been at poster sessions where the author brings in a small stand and has a stack of papers that people can take away. Why would you limit the dissemination of information at a meeting whose purpose is to disseminate information?
In fairness to the ADA (even though they haven’t really earned it), standing near the entrance to a convention hall and standing in front of one’s poster are not quite the same thing, logistically speaking at a meeting. When you’re doing a poster session, having reprints of the paper that the poster is based on is a way to spread your work to other scientists who approach your poster and show interest, whereas passing out papers in a public area of the convention is a little more intrusive. Even so, PZ’s basic overall point is sound.
The email from the ADA to Dr. Kahn also stated:
The email went on to note that there are “a lot of logistics and security measures taken when a federal official is in attendance.” A spokesperson for the N.I.H. did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Several of the researchers said they believed they were removed partly because the association feared repercussions from the Trump administration.
Indeed.
The question, of course, was how broadly the ADA’s policy stated in the email should reasonably have been interpreted. I saw no sign from the videos that the scientists passing out the articles had been “protesting,” harassing other attendees, being in any way “threatening,” “disorderly,” or “disruptive.” True, one might say that they were “protesting,” but in about the most low key manner you can imagine. All they had in their hands were piles of reprints of the Diabetes Care editorial, and, as far as anyone has reported, all they were doing was offering them to people entering the auditorium for what attendees thought was to be a talk by Dr. Bhattacharya. Yet, the organizers, instead of first having someone politely inform Dr. Kahn and his colleagues that they weren’t allowed to do this, apparently called security and the state police to do it. That by itself is an intentionally intimidating action that seemed quite out-of-proportion to the task of dealing with several diabetes scientists passing out copies of an article, at least two of whom were well-known to the ADA given past awards, presentations, and even leadership positions. Calling the police suggests panic.
Indeed, according to one of the scientists:
Irl Hirsch, a University of Washington endocrinologist who was among the group handing out the editorials but did not have his badge confiscated, said that the group was peaceful and that there were no signs or chants. Hirsch described the situation as “censorship” by the scientific society — of leaders in the diabetes field who were sharing an editorial that pointed out that the NIH’s stewardship of biomedical research was having a destructive effect on diabetes research.
It’s an imperfect analogy, but you know what this reminds me of? Back in the day, antivax “scientific conferences,” such as Autism One, were known to sic security and police on anyone attending their conference whom they perceived as an enemy, such as when pro-vaccine and pro-science advocates attended in order to see what was being said and presented there, expelling them under threat of arrest. Seriously, ADA, this is not a good look.Have you ever heard of the Streisand effect? Well, you’re learning about it now. If you had just allowed the scientists to pass out their articles, even if you thought it might be a violation of conference policy, chances are that no one would have heard about it. Now it’s national news—maybe even international news—with reports appearing in nearly every major news outlet in the US that you sicced security and state police on a bunch of mild mannered scientists, one of whom is the editor of your flagship journal and one of whom is a past president of your organization, who were doing nothing more than politely passing out a copy of an article published in your flagship journal. It’s not a good look. In fact, it’s a public relations disaster by any definition of the term.
The ADA annual conference is, of course, a private event, and its organizers can determine and enforce any rules that they want to. The ADA is free to run its annual meeting any way it wishes, but the overall reaction to this handful of scientists passing out copies of an editorial seems more than a little overblown given the magnitude of the perceived “offense,” which is why I add that I’m free to accuse the ADA of rank cowardice and “obeying in advance” if I desire. After all, NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya was originally scheduled to be the speaker. Even though he is, as I’ve said many times, a useful idiot for the Trump administration’s destructive policies devastating HHS science agencies, such as the NIH, CDC, and FDA, he is the face of Trump administration initiatives targeting the NIH and CDC, for the latter of which he currently serves as temporary director. One might imagine that organizers of the ADA meeting were terrified of what the Trump administration might do if they didn’t do anything.
The ADA still has a chance to redeem itself. Unfortunately, the conference ended yesterday, making it too late to rescind its ban on the scientists and let Dr. Kahn and others scheduled to present or moderate panels do what they were scheduled to do. However, the ADA can—and should—issue a genuine apology to those harassed and ejected by security and police and then do something to make it right. Somehow, I doubt that the ADA realizes yet just how bad the hit to its reputation due to their decision to seemingly obey in advance is. They will soon learn, however. They are learning now. The Streisand effect is powerful, and obeying in advance will not help.
As for Podcast Jay, here’s a great chance for him to put his money where his mouth is, for instance, by living up to his sentiment, “If you don’t have free speech, you cannot have science.” I agree, but freedom of speech should apply to all. Will it? Will Dr. Bhattacharya apply this standard to scientists who are critical of the administration in which he serves and the policies that he’s in charge of implementing? Or will he remain silent because these scientists who, unlike him, were censored by a medical professional organization, are opposed to what he is doing. There’s only one way for him to do this, and that’s to speak out against the censorship of Dr. Kahn and his colleagues who were censored, ejected, and banned from the ADA conference, their lanyards and papers confiscated. Seriously, Podcast Jay, do you really believe that free speech is essential to science?
I think we know the answer. As is the case with nearly all these free speech martyrs and warriors, it’s free speech for me, but not for thee, and when I face pushback and consequences due to my speech it’s “persecution” and “censorship,” but when you face the same it’s just consequences.