How a diabetes conference sparked a controversy

VideoSTATus Report How a diabetes conference sparked a controversy A STAT reporter’s account of an unsettling crackdown on free speech at the annual meeting in New Orleans. Manage alerts for this article Email this article Share this article By Alex HoganJune 12, 2026 Senior Multimedia Producer Alex Hogan[email protected]Alex Hogan is STAT’s senior multimedia producer and host of STATus Report, STAT’s weekly video series. You can follow him on Bluesky. The expulsion of five diabetes experts from the American Diabetes Association meeting in New Orleans earlier this week caused quite a stir. Many in the diabetes research community expressed shock and disbelief that their colleagues were threatened with arrest for passing out paper copies of an editorial. After a few days of doubling down in the face of significant backlash, the ADA did formally apologize on Wednesday. But is their mea culpa too little, too late? In this week’s STATus Report, I chat with STAT cardiovascular disease reporter Elizabeth Cooney. She was in New Orleans for the diabetes meeting, and we discussed what exactly happened, what the reaction was like on the ground, what it says about the climate of biomedical research in the second Trump administration, and more. Advertisement diabetes, politics Submit a correction requestReprints Alex Hogan Senior Multimedia Producer Alex Hogan is STAT’s senior multimedia producer and host of STATus Report, STAT’s weekly video series. You can follow him on Bluesky. Newsletter Understand how science, health policy, and medicine shape the world every day Recommended Politics June 11, 2026 STAT Plus: Updated: Tracking RFK Jr.’s promises to remake health in America Politics June 11, 2026 RFK Jr. claims his calendar is publicly available. We’ve been trying to get it for a year Advertisement D.C. Diagnosis June 11, 2026 STAT Plus: A suspicious denial pattern in Medicare Advantage Politics June 11, 2026 STAT Plus: Scientists see promise in NIH proposal to cap number of grants they receive Exclusive June 11, 2026 STAT Plus: Private Medicare plans erect barriers to rehab care in pursuit of profit, federal investigators find Subscriber Picks