Video: ADA Leader Apologizes to Researchers Ejected From Meeting

The CEO of the American Diabetes Association (ADA) has apologized to five members who were escorted by police out of the organization’s annual meeting in New Orleans last week after they distributed an editorial criticizing the Trump administration for making changes to diabetes research funding.

In the video, Charles Henderson said that he wanted to “personally apologize” to the five researchers kicked out of the meeting, as well as to the broader diabetes research community.

“I am deeply sorry for the hurt, frustration, and the pain that resulted,” he said to the researchers, adding that the ADA will commission a review of the events.

Steven Kahn, MBChB, one of the researchers booted from the convention center, told MedPage Today that he was “very pleased to see the ADA recognizes they erred. This is a good start to healing.”

During his apology, Henderson “talks about standing up for research,” Kahn noted. “Going forward, I would expect the ADA to speak out publicly and not use its 501(c)(3) status as a reason not to do so. The same holds for other nonprofit organizations in the research arena. We cannot be quiet and watch destruction being wreaked upon all of U.S. research, not just NIH.”

Kahn is the lead author of the editorial, which was published in Diabetes Care, the ADA’s flagship journal. He is also the journal’s editor-in-chief.

A swell of ADA members and former leaders called on the organization to apologize to the five experts, who earned the moniker the “New Orleans five,” including in a letter to Henderson and the ADA’s board of directors, which was signed by dozens of past principal officers of the organization, including past board chairs and past presidents of medicine and science.

There was also a letter from all of the living recipients of the ADA’s highest research award, the Banting Medal, to the chair and chair-elect of the ADA board of directors, calling for the organization to apologize to those ejected from the meeting and to the “entire diabetes community for creating an unwelcoming atmosphere at the scientific sessions.” A copy of that letter was shared with MedPage Today.

MedPage Today broke the news that the researchers had been escorted from the meeting by police, posting a video that showed officers shoving at least one researcher before asking them to step outside.

Kahn and four others were asked for their badges and told they could not return to the meeting.

At least two members of ADA leadership have since resigned: President-Elect Jennifer Green, MD, and Scientific Sessions Planning Committee Chair Mark Atkinson, PhD.