Editors at the American Diabetes Association’s (ADA) top journal are once again levying charges of censorship, after a packet of editorials about the events of this year’s annual meeting was denied publication by organization leadership.
The deputy editors of Diabetes Care instead published the packet on Zenodo, the science repository developed in 2013 by the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) to share everything from preprints and datasets to presentation slides.
Steven Kahn, MBChB, who was removed from this year’s meeting for handing out copies of an editorial that he and others wrote criticizing federal funding cuts to scientific research, said ADA leadership declined publishing the packet in the journal’s “Community Voices” section — a forum for wide-ranging opinions — because of an ongoing investigation into the meeting’s events.
“In my contract with them, it says I have editorial independence, but that has disappeared,” Kahn told MedPage Today. “What you’re seeing here is pure censorship.”
Kahn has been the editor in chief of Diabetes Care since 2022.
The ADA said in an emailed statement to MedPage Today that it was advised to not publish anything about the events that occurred during the meeting “until the authenticated facts have been fully established.”
“Publishing these pieces before that review is complete risks compromising the integrity of the review process,” the statement said.
ADA also noted that its review committee “intends to meet with each of the five individuals, but we do not know when those meetings were or will be scheduled.” It also pointed to a recent organizational update highlighting efforts to “strengthen an already robust research ecosystem and secure government funding for diabetes research.”
Kahn questioned the independence of the review committee, which he said is being run by members of the ADA’s board of directors.
The Zenodo packet contains an array of opinion pieces defending the researchers who were removed from the meeting, including pieces by David Nathan, MD, of Harvard University, and John Buse, MD, PhD, of the University of North Carolina School of Medicine.
It also has an account of events from the five researchers who were kicked out of the meeting, who have since become known as the “New Orleans five.”
There’s also a piece from Mark Atkinson, PhD, of the University of Florida, who resigned as chair of the ADA scientific sessions meeting planning committee in light of the events.
Atkinson explained why his signature appeared on an email sent to meeting participants on June 6 describing the events. He said he thought there would be an apology, and that he would have the chance to review the message before it went out, but neither happened.
He wrote that a “substantially different letter was released” with his name on it.
Resigning was “among the most difficult professional decisions I have ever made,” he noted, expressing his support for the committee, “whose dedication and professionalism remain beyond question,” and for the larger ADA community.
He said his decision “reflected a loss of confidence in how attendee concerns had been addressed and in how ADA leadership had responded at a moment when openness, humility, and dialogue were most needed.”
Kahn said he and the four others who were kicked out of the meeting were supposed to have a meeting with ADA leadership to discuss what happened, but it was cancelled and never rescheduled.
The editorial at the center of events criticized Trump administration changes to NIH funding and impacts to diabetes research funding. When it was published in April, the ADA placed a “disclaimer” on the editorial noting that the views expressed belong to the authors, and not the organization.
Another editorial, released during the annual meeting, criticized a Trump administration proposed rule that experts say would increase political oversight of federal research grantmaking. Kahn said ADA placed a disclaimer on that editorial as well.
“It started with the ADA placing disclaimers on two editorials we wrote about research funding and published in Diabetes Care,” Kahn said, “and now it is prohibiting the publication of opinion pieces written by its own membership and approved by the journal’s editors.”
