More than 1,100 members and supporters of the American Diabetes Association (ADA) are boycotting the organization, according to a MedPage Today opinion piece by Elizabeth Selvin, an editor of the ADA's flagship journal Diabetes Care. The boycott follows an incident at the ADA's June 2026 annual meeting in New Orleans, where five physicians and scientists were removed by armed security and threatened with arrest after handing out reprints of an editorial critical of Trump administration policies that would cut NIH funding.
Selvin writes that the ADA has offered three different explanations for the removals: that the five attendees violated codes of conduct, that they lacked permission to distribute materials, and that their actions threatened the ADA's nonprofit status. The ADA later issued an apology video and promised an independent review, but the review committee was chaired by its own board members. The organization also censored first-hand accounts and opinion pieces about the events, including an editorial on scientific freedom accepted by another ADA journal.
Four months after the incident, Selvin says critical questions remain unanswered, including who authorized the use of armed security and why the ADA censored publications in Diabetes Care. The boycott has already halted submissions to the journal, grant reviews, fundraisers, and educational activities. Selvin argues that the ADA lacks formal accountability mechanisms for members, leaving the boycott as the only way to force change. She calls on the ADA to restore editorial independence and regain the trust of its professional members.