What Happened

On the morning of June 5, 2026, at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center in New Orleans, the American Diabetes Association summoned Louisiana State Police to remove five scientists from its own annual conference.

Their offense: handing out copies of a published editorial.

Not a protest sign. Not a disruptive chant. A peer-reviewed editorial — already in print — in Diabetes Care, which is the ADA's own flagship journal.

According to the Seattle Times, Dr. Steven Kahn — director of the University of Washington Diabetes Research Center and the journal's editor-in-chief for the past four years — was among those removed. He wrote the editorial. He runs the journal it was published in. He flew to New Orleans to present at the conference. Police escorted him out of the building and told him if he came back inside, he'd be arrested.

Louisiana State Police confirmed to the Seattle Times that event organizers requested their assistance removing the individuals. No arrests were made. All five left peacefully.

Who Got Removed

Beyond Kahn, Dr. Aaron Kelly — a professor of pediatrics at the University of Minnesota — was also escorted out. According to Ars Technica, former ADA president Dr. Desmond Schatz was among those ejected as well.

Kelly filmed part of the removal. In the video, an officer appears to chest-bump him during the escort. Kelly says on camera: "Censorship is real."

The ADA emailed Dr. Kahn hours later, stating his behavior violated the conference's code of conduct and that officials had "no choice" but to remove him. The code expects participants to conduct themselves "in a professional and respectful manner."

Handing out a published academic editorial at an academic conference apparently qualified as unprofessional.

What the Editorial Actually Said

The editorial was published April 29, 2026, in Diabetes Care. It warned that the Trump administration's cuts to federal biomedical research funding pose a serious long-term threat to public health.

The numbers behind it are real. According to a February 2026 Senate HELP Committee report, NIH terminated or froze at least $561 million in research grants covering the four leading causes of death in the United States. Of that, $83 million was cut from 68 diabetes-specific research grants — money that Congress had already fully appropriated.

The Medium essay by Kim M. Braud notes separately that at least $450 million in NIH grants were frozen, with $66 million cut from diabetes funding specifically. The exact figures vary slightly by source but the scale is not in dispute: hundreds of millions in already-approved research money, gone.

This is not a fringe editorial. It's citing documented cuts to science that affects roughly 38 million Americans living with diabetes.

The Timing Question

The five researchers were removed shortly before NIH Director Dr. Jay Bhattacharya was scheduled to deliver the conference keynote. The ADA had Bhattacharya lined up as a speaker and apparently wasn't interested in a room full of scientists reading an editorial that criticized his agency's policies right before he took the stage.

Kahn told the Seattle Times exactly what he thought was happening: "I think the American Diabetes Association was worried about repercussions from the Trump administration."

Then he said something that deserves full attention: "I don't think they're alone. I think all professional organizations are worried about their nonprofit status. And so bunches of them have been quieted, in my view. … This cannot carry on."

A professional scientific organization silenced its own people — including its own journal's editor — not because they broke any real rule, but because the organization is afraid of what the federal government might do to its tax status. That is institutional self-censorship driven by political fear.

What the ADA Has to Answer For

The ADA published the editorial. In its own journal. Then called the police on the man who wrote it for sharing it at their conference.

An organization that wants credit for publishing criticism while making sure that criticism stays quiet in any room where it might matter.

Kahn said he was not scared and was willing to be arrested. The ADA, apparently, was scared enough for everyone.

What This Means for You

If you or someone you love has diabetes, the $83 million cut from 68 research grants isn't an abstract policy debate. That's delayed clinical trials. That's treatments that don't get developed. That's NIH researchers who got fired or froze their work mid-study.

The professional organization that's supposed to advocate for diabetes research is removing scientists from its own conference for saying so out loud.

Free speech doesn't stop being important because the subject is science. The government can cut funding — that's a policy debate worth having. But when professional organizations start calling the cops on their own members for distributing published research, something has gone badly wrong.

Kahn's parting line is the right one: This cannot carry on.