By Charles "Chuck" Henderson
September 1, 2026
The medical research community is currently navigating a period of unprecedented anxiety. With federal budget cycles increasingly characterized by volatility and proposed austerity measures, the stakes for researchers, clinicians, and the millions of patients living with diabetes have never been higher. Yet, during the American Diabetes Association’s (ADA) Scientific Sessions in New Orleans this past June, this collective anxiety manifested in a way that threatened to fracture the very community dedicated to life-saving progress.
Following the disruption of our annual meeting on June 5, I issued an immediate apology to those directly involved and to the broader diabetes community. I promised then that we would conduct a full, independent review of the events that led to the removal of several attendees. Today, that review—led by five independent volunteer investigators—is complete. It is my firm belief that these findings deserve to be heard directly, stripped of the distortion that occurs when facts are filtered through months of competing narratives and social media speculation.
The Core Facts: Separating Narrative from Reality
The public discourse following the June 5 incident was dominated by two primary, incendiary claims. The first was an allegation of censorship: that the ADA suppressed a specific viewpoint by removing attendees who were distributing an editorial critical of federal research cuts. The second was an allegation of state-sponsored suppression: that the ADA had weaponized local law enforcement against its own members.
The independent review has examined both claims with exhaustive detail.
The Censorship Allegation
The claim that the ADA removed individuals to silence dissent regarding federal research funding is fundamentally unsupported by the facts. The editorial in question, "Misguided Brushes of a Pen Continue to Dismantle," was not an underground manifesto; it was a peer-reviewed piece published in our own journal, Diabetes Care.
It is logically inconsistent to suggest that an organization would censor content that it had actively curated, published, and promoted through its own professional channels. The investigation concluded that the removal of these individuals was not a reaction to the substance of their distributed materials, but rather a direct response to their conduct. The attendees in question engaged in repeated, disruptive behavior that persisted despite multiple requests from staff to adhere to the conference’s established code of conduct. The priority was, and must remain, the ability of all attendees to participate in a professional, constructive environment.
The Allegation of Police Intervention
The second major point of contention was the reported "calling in" of the New Orleans Police Department to manage the protest. The review found that this did not occur. Like any conference of our magnitude, the ADA employs professional security personnel to ensure the safety of our attendees. Some of these individuals are, in fact, off-duty law enforcement officers, but they were acting strictly in their capacity as event security, not as government agents. The investigation found no evidence that a call was placed to the New Orleans Police Department by any ADA staff member or representative.
Acknowledging Institutional Shortcomings
While these findings clarify the reality of the events, they do not grant the ADA a pass. I share these results not to declare the incident a "nonissue" or to suggest that our staff and security team performed flawlessly. They did not.
The independent review highlights critical "missed opportunities" for better communication. In the volatile, high-pressure moments before and during the disruption, both our staff and our security team could have managed the situation with greater transparency and de-escalation tactics. We take these failures seriously. Accountability requires us to be as rigorous in evaluating our own errors as we are in investigating the disruptions themselves. Moving forward, we are updating our training protocols to ensure that our commitment to open, respectful dialogue is matched by our ability to handle dissent in a way that upholds both our values and our duty to our attendees.
The Broader Landscape: Funding, Advocacy, and Anxiety
To understand why such friction occurred in New Orleans, we must look beyond the incident itself to the systemic pressures facing the medical research community.
The fear regarding federal funding is not misplaced. Over recent budget cycles, significant cuts to diabetes research have been proposed, threatening to derail decades of clinical progress. However, there is a narrative—one that often goes untold—that these cuts have, for the most part, not materialized. Diabetes research funding has remained largely resilient, a testament to the fact that our community has fought back effectively.
For instance, this year the ADA played a pivotal role in opposing a White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) proposal that would have allowed political appointees, rather than established, objective, career grantmaking processes, to determine which scientific research received funding. Our advocacy, combined with the efforts of our partners, yielded tangible results. The Senate recently introduced language into the pending continuing resolution that would effectively block this OMB rule from taking effect. We are currently applying maximum pressure to ensure that this language is mirrored in House legislation.
This is the day-to-day reality of the ADA. We are engaged in constant, often quiet, advocacy on behalf of the field. Yet, we have clearly failed to communicate the impact of this work to the researchers and clinicians who attend our meetings—the very people who feel the most vulnerable to these policy shifts. This communication gap is, in my view, why the frustration that rightfully belonged elsewhere landed so heavily on us in New Orleans. We intend to close that gap.
Rebuilding Trust and Facing Forward
Scientific communities that only tolerate agreement are not healthy. The ADA’s commitment to open debate is not merely rhetoric; it is reflected in the pages of Diabetes Care and in our public statements, where we have consistently challenged both current and former administrations on issues of research support, diabetes prevention, and healthcare coverage.
We will continue to provide space for dissent. However, we ask that such disagreement be expressed in a manner that does not impede the ability of others to participate. When we fight each other, we lose. Every hour spent contesting the narrative of one difficult day is an hour stolen from the fight for the next decade of diabetes innovation.
We have only one true opponent: policy that harms the health and research interests of the diabetes community.
As we move past this incident, I ask the community to hold two truths simultaneously: a clear-eyed, honest accounting of what occurred on June 5, and a renewed recognition that we are, ultimately, each other’s strongest allies. We have weathered funding crises and internal disagreements before, and we have always emerged stronger by choosing to face outward, together. I am confident that we will do so again, grounded in the shared mission that has defined our careers and saved countless lives.
Trust is not something that is claimed; it is earned through accountability and consistency. By releasing the findings of this independent review, we are taking a necessary step toward that goal. I am committed to ensuring that the ADA remains a home for the entirety of the diabetes community—a place where voices are heard, where dissent is valued, and where we remain singularly focused on the work that matters most.
