An article published in the journal Diabetes Care, a journal of the American Diabetes Association, and authored by credible scientists in the field, begins with this condemnation of the policies of the NIH administration:
Just a year ago, in these very pages, we highlighted the many threats the current U.S. administration posed to the health of our nation. Since then, there have been actions by the administration that have caused grave health consequences, and their current approach will continue to do so. The numerous measles outbreaks and associated avoidable deaths have resulted in part from hyping disproven theories of harm rather than publicizing the effectiveness of the measles vaccine. Plugging the concept that diabetes is curable by “changing the food source” simply ignores the large body of work that has demonstrated that it is not merely a disease of poor nutrition and the immense challenges of reinventing the food industry. Peddling conspiracy theories represents failures by officials of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), whose primary goal is to protect our health. These two examples represent just two of the broken promises made by the current HHS leadership during their confirmation hearings. And, despite promising oversight, representatives on Capitol Hill have shirked their responsibility and have allowed the country to continue along misguided paths that even they recognized as irresponsible.
It goes on at considerable length, documenting all the failures of Jay Bhattacharya and RFK jr. Read the whole thing.
The authors were at a meeting of the American Diabetes Association handing out copies of that editorial to attendees, when the society administration called in uniformed security to kick them out of the meeting, and cancelled their registration.
The incident took place Friday morning at a meeting of the American Diabetes Association in New Orleans, shortly before Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, director of the National Institutes of Health, was scheduled to speak. An organizer announced just before Dr. Bhattacharya’s session that he would no longer be speaking; a senior adviser at the N.I.H. took his place.
The researchers were handing out copies of the editorial, recently published in the association’s flagship journal, which detailed the effects of N.I.H. cuts and other Trump administration actions on diabetes research and outcomes, when security staff asked them to step outside and tried to take away the papers, said Aaron Kelly, a professor of pediatrics at the University of Minnesota who was among the researchers escorted out. A video taken by MedPage Today, which first reported the news, shows a tense confrontation, including a man in uniform putting his hands on an expert.
Wow. That’s fascism in action, suppressing the free discussion of scientific assessment of the field. And this action was ordered by the officers of the American Diabetes Association!
Hours after he was removed, Dr. Kahn received an email from the American Diabetes Association stating that his behavior had violated the conference’s code of conduct.
“You were respectfully informed that distribution of materials was not permitted and given the opportunity to remain in the meeting if you stopped handing out the materials,” the email read. “When you continued the behavior, we had no choice but to remove you for the remainder of the meeting.”
The email went on to note that there are “a lot of logistics and security measures taken when a federal official is in attendance.” A spokesperson for the N.I.H. did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Several of the researchers said they believed they were removed partly because the association feared repercussions from the Trump administration.
The order refusing to allow the distribution of papers is pure bullshit. It is common practice for researchers to bring along copies of their relevant papers and hand them out. I’ve been at poster sessions where the author brings in a small stand and has a stack of papers that people can take away. Why would you limit the dissemination of information at a meeting whose purpose is to disseminate information?
That it was a “security measure” is equally disingenuous. What was the guy going to do, rush the stage with his papers and slash Bhattacharya with vicious paper cuts?
This action by the American Diabetes Association was simply cowardice by the organizers of the conference. They should be ashamed. This is going to go in the history books as another example among many of chickenshit institutions caving to their own oppression by the Trump administration.
Dr. Kahn said that the editorial aimed to advance science.
“It is no longer enough to stand idly by or work behind the scenes with lawmakers,” the experts wrote in their editorial. “Moreover, it is no longer appropriate to fret about political backlash. Now is the time to recognize and fight to reverse the spiraling fall of the United States of America’s status as the foremost nation in health care innovation.”
‘Hi honey, I’m home!’
‘Oh, how was the science conference?’
‘Wonderful!. We got rid of a bunch of science!’
Had to be pretty close to a conversation or 2 had that night, right?
I mean these are passionate, intelligent, hard working people who have devoted their lives to this stuff and are presumably the very top tier of doing what they do. I doubt there would be a 0.1% of people on the entire planet at these guys level in their field. I cannot fathom how you do and be that and simultaneously cave to pressure by those who would literally destroy it all if they could?
It is hard to know what justice for RFK looks like.
Aaaaall right, a comparatively small episode but I must agree: this is indeed pure unadulterated fascism.
It was exactly like this in Italy, with uni profs and students silenced and/or chucked out if they didn’t toe the line, their publications censored or destroyed.
Then came obligatory enrollment in the fascist party, again under pain of dismissal (and very few refused it must be said). Acts of resistance were rare, for instance Primo Levi was able to graduate because his professor didn’t care a flying fuck about the racial laws, but it was pretty unusual.
The organizers of the conference simply replicate the exact behaviour of 100 years ago, same cravenness, same Gleichschaltung. I also notice those rentacops not refusing to carry out those ridiculous orders, a lack of reflection typical of blackshirts.
Nice stinking kettle of fish really, I can see why many people don’t follow the news any more.
18 months ago one could legitimately argue that the US was the world leader in science. Now that is la tough argument to make. MAGA tyranny will be with us for a long time to come.
I was at a internal meeting at a research center and one of the top administrators said that it is not to bad. We can still do vaccine research. You just have to call it research on tropical disease and not use the word vaccine. I was in shock…
Sounds like a straightforward First Amendment violation, to me. It’s unlikely to be challenged as such, as you say, because of the craven cowardice of the responsible authorities, including Congress.
Rentacops were just doing what they are paid to do. They couldn’t care less about free speech rights.
The main thing is to get the papers out there rather than suppressed as RFK Jr seems to be doing with stuff he doesn’t like.
You can already see the disasters starting from the Trump regime’s War on Science and Medicine.
The parasitic screwworm is back in the USA again. It was eradicated from the USA in the 1960s.
This is a serious pest that infects all warm blooded animals.
It does not just infect cattle. Humans are also at risk. So are your dogs and cats. Wildlife populations such as deer can drop by 80%.
Shortly after Trump was elected, the USDA dropped the ball on containing the spread of the screwworm up from Central America.
and
It remains to be seen whether the Federal government can get it together enough to contain the first US outbreak of screwworm since the 1970s.
The organizers of that meeting need to be vigorously pitched out of their positions in the organization. And black-balled.
They can redeem themselves by turning in RFKJr’s head.
The Repugs & especially Trumpists War on Science will claim a LOT of needless human casualties and cause an incalculable, incomprehensible amount of destruction and harm that could have been so easily avoided if we’d had a Kamala Harris presidency instead.
Now the consequences of Trump’s war on Science and him being made effectively a dictator for life along with his successors will continue indefinitely and catastrophically far into the future.
The Trump regime is wrecking US science such that it would take decades to recover.
I doubt if it that will happen.
I was at a meeting a few weeks ago.
One climate scientist lost all her funding.
It wasn’t just her either, it was her whole large nationally known department.
They are scrambling to find funding for the graduate students and postdocs and probably won’t accept any graduate students for next year.
She is going part time and will probably just quit.
There was also a scientist from the EPA lab there. This is one of a few EPA centers in the USA.
Same thing happened. They’ve cut funding, moved people all over the USA, got rid of as many as they could, and wrecked the place as much as possible.
I’ve seen this movie before, a few times.
It can take years to build up a world class research institution and programs.
You can destroy it all in a few months by just cutting the funding and harassing all the scientists to the point where they quit.
So what else has Trump and RFK jr. accomplished to kill people so far.
.1. The ongoing measles outbreaks in the USA that have killed 3 children so far.
.2. The Ebola epidemic in Africa.
Containment efforts have been weak because, since the US abolished the USAID programs, we aren’t helping.
Fighting this new pathogen would benefit from an mRNA vaccine which the US could have rapidly provided in the old days before January 2025.
.
.3. Already mentioned the imminent screwworm outbreak.
.4. The next epidemic or pandemic.
There will be one.
We just don’t know where it will be and which pathogen it will be.
@8 raven : I think a lot of scientists especially climatologists and epidemiologists will head overseas. The USA’s loss will be other nations gain as happened w Hitler and Jewish scientists in 1930’s Germany.
People sure don’t learn form history. Sigh.
Mind you the USA falling behind in science is going to hurt science globally as well.
I’m masking up, for what it’s worth.
I understand the authoritarian “Lysenkoism”going on in MAHA, but for me, on this particular issue, is the misunderstanding of DIABETES; What type are we talking about? Insulin dependent (also known as Type 1 or juvenile onset diabetes) where the pancreas produces no insulin at all. Or insulin resistant (also known as Type 2 or adult onset) where the pancreas produces insulin but the body, for whatever reason, resists it.
Insulin dependent patients absolutely need insulin injections to survive. No amount of lifestyle enhancements will change that fact.
However, insulin resistant patients may benefit from lifestyle changes described by MAHA. Thus possibly reducing their need for insulin injections.
From what I gathered reading the above commentary, no distinction of the different types of diabetes was made. So ….? Enlighten me!
Arrgh
Why would you expect the commentariat to discuss the different types of diabetes? The topic of the post is Institutional cowardice, diabetes is incidental.
Perhaps you should enlighten yourself? The information you missed is right there, in the link to the whole paper.
Read the whole thing. The comment you single out is a small remark in passing, not in any respect the core of the argument, which is about the wholesale destruction of NIH-funded research. As for this specific (minor) remark, t is true that Type 2 diabetes is a metabolic disorder for which excessive adiposity, sedentary lifestyle, and a high-glycemic index diet are risk factors, but there point is that you cannot just wave away the problem by saying that people should eat better. The reasons why many Americans have poor diets are traceable to the profit seeking of the grocery manufacturers (yes, that’s what they call themselves), and the restaurant industry. It is very difficult for people to improve their diets, and once they do have Type 2 diabetes, it is very rare to reverse it by lifestyle changes. The authors describe at length some of the important epidemiological and clinical research in this area which is threatened by the homicidal maniac in charge of HHS.
Hey Tethys and cervantes, thanks for reminding me a bout the link. Like a doofus I totally skipped over it. I appreciate you all
I wish everyone would read Ada Palmer’s blog post about dealing with censorship. Essentially, she shows that most censorship is in fact self-censorship, but most self-censorship is a response to top-down censorship. In other words, it’s very important not to be intimidated into silence.
While weight and diet are well known risk factors for type 2 diabetes, there are a lot more risk factors than that.
Age is another risk factor.
You have no control over your genetics or age.
Snarki, child of Loki @6
Do they have to remove it from his ass first?
Well I don’t want to support the MAHA gang, but I am very much not a fan of the ADA either. For years, they actually prescribed a high-carbohydrate diet for diabetics. They have retreated from that position now (probably to avoid class action lawsuits), but their current position is pretty much anything goes, which is not much better (https://professional.diabetes.org/clinical-support/nutrition-wellness).
Of course, diabetes has no cure, whether Type 1 or Type 2, and is irreversible (except in temporary onsets like gestational diabetes or responses to steroids). But obviously recommending or even allowing a high-carbohydrate diet doesn’t make much sense. I’m “prediabetic” myself and follow the very low-carb regime of the late Dr Bernstein, who was a trenchant critic of the ADA mainly because of their diet prescriptions.
acsglster ., I get it. You don’t trust experts.
What about excerpts? Trust those?
Here:
(https://professional.diabetes.org/clinical-support/nutrition-wellness)
Again, my emphasis:
How is that not much better than ‘pretty much anything goes’, which was your misleading paraphrase?
Not equivocal, is it? Quite specific. The opposite of what you attempted to intimate.
—
Did you rely on people not verifying your linked source did not say what you claimed it did?
John Morales #20: Yes, I am familiar with that passage you excerpted. Notice the various alternative diets they list though, most of which do not particularly focus on reducing carbohydrates. You can pick one to fit any particular level of carbohydrates you want. There is a famous TED video by the late Sarah Hallberg where she specifically mentions the passage you quote and contrasts it with the actual dietary advice that diabetics get. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=da1vvigy5tQ (around 6:28)
acsglster,
Well, yes. Different people, different regimes as medically-indicated.
It’s not one size fits all.
People have choice is the subtext, and something that is less onerous is easier.
Again, from your adduced study:
Is there? I’ll take your word for it.
More relevantly, I quoted it, but you adduced it to the contrary of what it actually says.
Well, that is the advice you yourself said is what diabetics get which is bad.
At least, that was clearly your intimation.
You can’t walk it back. I just took a look at your article, and quoted bits.
They did not say what you claimed they said.
Again: Did you rely on people not verifying your linked source did not say what you claimed it did?
(Sure seems like it)
@ 7 StevoR
Or better yet if Democrats had made any effort whatsoever to offer viable opposition, like with an actual progressive candidate, instead of, “Let’s try Hilary Clinton all over again except this time Black and smiley. That should do it. What could possibly go wrong?”.
@22 Morales: Yes, those generous options they have are exactly what I meant by “not much better”. Earlier they actually had a standard recommended high carbohydrate diet, and in fact explicitly condemned low-carbohydrate diets. They have changed their mind on that, which is an improvement. Not much better though, because, for example, they still endorse among other things the “very low fat” meal plan which is mostly carbs and includes things like whole grains.
A diabetic on a meal plan like that would struggle to keep their blood sugars under control. Even with medications or insulin, it would be difficult to dose correctly to cover the high carb load, leading to fluctuating blood glucose and courting complications.
Elsewhere, they suggest “the diabetes plate” which is 50% (plate area) non-starchy vegetables, and 25% (plate area) “quality carbs” including things like potatoes and grains https://diabetesfoodhub.org/blog/what-diabetes-plate. And this is their idea of a low carb diet!
Looks pretty good to me, honestly.
But I am not an expert.
ADA does, however, have experts.
So does the CDC: https://www.cdc.gov/diabetes/healthy-eating/diabetes-meal-planning.html
I took a look in case it’s just a fad, but apparently it’s a thing.
Here is a study from 2023:
↓
Conclusions
The Plate Tool is an acceptable dietary self-monitoring tool for healthy adults over 50. Self-monitoring tools based on the plate method should take the barriers described in this study into account. Future studies should compare dietary self-monitoring methods to assess adherence and effectiveness at eliciting dietary behavior change.
[from the intro section]
Importantly, given that there is no itemization of foods in the plate-method, this approach is accessible to all health literacy levels given its simplicity [[19], [20], [21]]. Interventions using the plate-method as a nutrition educational tool have led to positive dietary changes and improved health outcomes for those living with diabetes to manage their glycemia compared with interventions involving carbohydrate counting [19] or calorie counting [22]. Furthermore, this plate-based approach has been found to help those living with diabetes better plan their meals and increase their fruit and vegetable intake [19,23].
[oops, forgot the link: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10436173/ ]
Ugh, I am weary of the endless, pointless blabbering of Oz people who fail to understand that American political parties do not choose candidates. It’s all self selection, then primaries. The party can endorse and support campaigns, but they cannot choose who runs for office.
Hillary Clinton was in fact the best qualified candidate for president that has run in my many decades of voting.
Her major drawback was her Husband. I will take a smart, dedicated, lifelong public servant over a corrupt pedophile piece of trash any day.
@ ^ Tethys :Agreed & I reckon Kamala was an even better candidate.
The choice was even starker and clearer back then.
How the fuck could so many Americ.. USA-ites choose so fucking poorly and unwisely?
I cannot fathom the depth of their willfful .. yeah.. sheer counter-productive stupidity.
The “Punish Kamala for Biden doing what any POTUS wold do after 7th Oct 2023 and supporing what Netanyahu chose to do” mob have got Gaza and the Palestinians all killed as predicted the fucking stupid morons.
Yet they still think they’re so morally pure becoz they are such fucking utter tools of the worst of the worst of the worst (x Infniity, incalculably much real pain and carnage and horror caused) as was obvs predictable and they were warned of consequences of their evil stupidity that will outlast the stench of religion.
I have a very vivid imagination. I write horror stories and dream them, We all have to live them now thanks to them.)
I cannot think of anything bad enough to be jsutice for them.
It is so very little consolation that they have fucked themselves up so badly along with the rest of the planet.
The rest of the planet does NOT deserve what they did to it and did not get and say yet they did.
Again, see my last line of #28 above. It is so inadequate to convey the depth of reality and feelings and truth.
You could’ve had Kamala.
Now you have Trump.
You’ve totally fucked up the world.
What words, what anything, can suffice for that?
Fix :
The rest of the planet does NOT deserve what they did to it and did not get any say yet they did what they did.
Kamala was not even close to Hillary in terms of qualifications, but definitely was a better choice than the demented rapist.
In any case, politics isn’t the topic and it’s pointless to argue over spilt milk.
Tethys @31: Of course politics is the topic, and I have no problem with StevoR hammering disingenuous bad-faith fuckwits like beholder and their apologists like Silentbob, at least until they admit their fuckwittedness. At least The Vicar had the decency to stop commenting here.
@Rob
They are both Aussie. They can both zip it and stop filling threads with pointless blather.
That’s exactly the problem. And Steveor takes the bait every time. Meanwhile in the USA, orange tyrant is inching towards death, has the lowest approval rating ever recorded, and democratic socialism is making a quiet comeback.
Silentbob@23: “Or better yet if Democrats had made any effort whatsoever to offer viable opposition, like with an actual progressive candidate …”
I have seen a LOT of Reich Winger’s offering that apologetic for why the democrats lost the 2024 election. There are at least two reasons why it is a total garbage argument.
1. In what universe was Harris, Clinton, or even a dead spider, worse than an idiot, barely 3rd grader at best, malignant narcissistic, pedophile, convicted rapist, 34 count felon, and lifetime career criminal?
2. The fix was in, voting didn’t actually matter since so many democratic voters were intimidated and their votes were simply discarded to make Mango Mussolini the winner. Somehow the Muskrat* knew the voting outcome even before it was reported by any news organization. It literally did not matter who the democrats ran in that election. The Democratic Party tendency for self sabotage has never helped win elections (see Reagan, Shrub, tRump1.0), but it really didn’t matter in the 2024 election. The GQP was going to “win” no matter what the actual voting outcome.
https://sdvoice.info/trump-lost-vote-suppression-won-here-are-the-numbers/
*He spent $288M to get the Orange Felon reelected so that he could destroy his more that $2B in accrued fines by destroying the investigations into his illegal activities. A pretty good return on investment.
https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2025-04-28/elon-musks-companies-face-at-least-2-37-billion-in-potential-federal-penalties-trump-doge-tesla-spacex-blumenthal
And he went on to follow up on his psychopathic Nazi racism by killing off USAID, condemning at least a million blacks (mostly children) to early deaths by starvation and disease. Allegedly, the world’s richest person** does not want poor people to live, especially if they are not Caucasian Nazis like him: “The fundamental weakness of Western Civilization is EMPATHY” — Elon Musk
**It is likely that there are trillionaire Saudi’s since they have no income taxes and no wealth reporting. Look at how much they are willing to throw away on their total fantasy city (Neom, the Line in the Desert, with no cars – despite videos showing flying cars, impossible trains, fantasy scenarios, etc.). And they threw away over $2B in ̶b̶r̶i̶b̶e̶s̶ “investments” to the Orange Felon’s son-in-law, who has no experience in that field and who only collects a fee and does nothing else with that money.
Exactly. Those ‘primaries’ are how the party chooses which candidates to endorse.
Political parties don’t choose candidates here, either.
People ask to join them, which is self-selection no less, then the party will either accept and endorse them or not.
Basically, self-selection is universal; nobody gets drafted into politics. The primary is just the mechanism the American establishment uses to choose which self-selected candidate to officially endorse and bankroll. It’s the same gatekeeping process as anywhere else, just with an extra public step.
(Sometimes, USAnians think they are exceptional)
Primaries are elections. The people pick, the parties don’t get a vote. They may, or may not endorse whoever wins the primary.
BTW John, I am not including you in the category of annoying Aussies as you weren’t part of the tedious rehashing of Hillary vs dumpster.
.
We did sort of invent the process but nobody thinks elections are exceptional. Glad the rest of the world copied democracy. It’s much better than monarchy.
So ‘primarying’ someone is not a thing? Parties don’t get a say? Come on!
Best as I can tell, functionally, ‘primarying’ an incumbent in the US is the exact American equivalent of an Australian party stripping a politician of their preselection.
It is very much a form of selection by the party.
(I’d myself have named it ‘preliminary’, not ‘primary’, but hey. Not everyone has the gift)
I didn’t claim parties have no influence, but they certainly do not decide who runs for elected office.
Of what, understanding the difference between a noun and an adjective?
Of felicitous phrasing, euphonious expressions, semantic soundness, and apposite articulation.
See, they are preliminary elections, not primary elections.
That would literally entail the real election is a ‘secondary’ election.
(Words matter)