On June 5, 2026, security at the American Diabetes Association's annual conference in New Orleans pulled the badges of five senior members and walked them out. They'd been handing out copies of a Diabetes Care editorial that criticized federal cuts to biomedical research funding. The five were Dr. Steven Kahn, the journal's editor-in-chief and one of the editorial's four co-authors; Dr. Desmond Schatz, a past ADA president; Dr. Aaron Kelly of the University of Minnesota; Dr. Maureen Gannon, a professor of medicine at Vanderbilt University; and Dr. Justin Ryder of Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine. Two ADA leaders resigned days later. On September 1, 2026, an independent review conducted by the ADA's own Audit and Governance Committee concluded the removals had nothing to do with what the editorial said.

1. The ADA's Review Blames Their Conduct, Not Their Editorial (Chuck Henderson, ADA CEO; James Tai, ADA Board Chair)

Leadership says a nearly three-month investigation found no censorship, no police, and a fixable communications failure.

Investigators spent nearly three months on the review. They interviewed 28 people and combed through video, emails, texts, news coverage, and the editorial itself.

Investigators say their conduct got them removed, not their words. They found the group's behavior disrupted the event and broke the ADA's Attendee Code of Conduct, and said the content of what they were distributing "was unrelated to their removal."

Investigators also rejected the police claim. They found the people in uniform were contracted security, not sworn officers, and found no evidence that anyone from the ADA called the New Orleans Police Department.

ADA leadership calls this a fixable process failure, not censorship. The review found real "communication shortcomings" among staff, security, and attendees, and the ADA says it's strengthening training and event policy as a result. CEO Chuck Henderson said the organization wants to "turn our full attention to the work ahead" on research funding, and Board Chair James Tai said he has confidence in Henderson's leadership.

2. The Scientists Say the CEO Already Admitted This Was Wrong (John Buse, Former ADA President; Jeffrey Flier, Former Harvard Medical School Dean; Jay Skyler, University of Miami Professor of Medicine)

The five scientists ADA security walked out, and the community around them, don't buy the conduct explanation.

John Buse, who co-wrote the editorial, called the whole thing inconceivable. He said it was "shocking" that the ADA "deployed the police" against members handing out a piece the journal had already published.

Jeffrey Flier says almost no one in the field would defend this. The former Harvard Medical School dean, a 50-year ADA member, said "99.9% of all professional diabetes people" would call the removal "a horrifying mistake."

Jay Skyler told ADA staff directly that they should be embarrassed. He criticized an internal email defending security's actions in the moment.

Forty-five former ADA presidents and board chairs backed them up in writing. Their June 11 letter said the ADA "should have applauded the effort to advocate for appropriate and greater scientific and medical research funding" instead of punishing it.

The scientists' best evidence is Henderson's own apology. Five days after the incident, he named all five scientists by name and said he was "deeply sorry for the hurt, frustration, and the pain that resulted." To this group, that apology already conceded the ADA got it wrong. They see the September review as a walk-back of that admission.

3. Scientific-Integrity Watchdogs Say the Review Missed What Matters (Adam Marcus and Ivan Oransky, Center for Scientific Integrity)

The real evidence of suppression happened nearly six weeks later, and the review doesn't touch it.

Marcus and Oransky call the original ejection "preemptive capitulation." The Retraction Watch co-founders argued the ADA acted out of fear of upsetting the Trump administration. That morning's opening keynote had already gone to an NIH "Make America Healthy Again" advisor after NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya canceled to meet with Trump instead. Marcus and Oransky called the ADA's response "cowardice" next to the organization's past willingness to hold its ground.

Their strongest evidence is about what happened next. Nearly six weeks after the removals, and before the AGC review was even finished, ADA leadership blocked Diabetes Care from publishing an editorial and firsthand accounts of the incident, citing the still-open review. The material ended up posted instead on the open-access site Zenodo.

That timeline undercuts the review's conclusion. The ADA blocked its own journal from covering a free-speech controversy. Then it produced an internal report clearing itself of suppressing speech. That doesn't answer the credibility question. It restates it.

Where This Lands

The ADA's own investigators say security removed the five scientists for disrupting the event, not for what they said. They also found no evidence anyone from the ADA called the police. The scientists ADA security removed, and dozens of former ADA leaders, say that account doesn't square with a CEO who had already apologized to them by name. And integrity watchdogs point to a July decision the September review never had to answer for: the ADA blocked its own journal from covering the story.

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