By Adam Marcus and Ivan OranskyJuly 31, 2026
Marcus is the editorial director of the Center for Scientific Integrity, the parent nonprofit of Retraction Watch, and senior editorial director of primary care at Medscape. Oransky is the executive director of the center and distinguished journalist in residence at New York University’s Arthur Carter Journalism Institute.
Nine years ago in these pages, we — columnists for STAT at the time — praised the American Diabetes Association for standing up to a researcher in Brazil who had sued the group in U.S. federal court for issuing expressions of concern on four of his published articles. We even named the ADA the inaugural winner of our Doing the Right Thing award.
Times certainly have changed, and the ADA is no longer what we’d call a profile in courage. The nation’s leading diabetes group now finds itself mired in a self-made mess involving its decision to oust a group of physicians from its annual meeting earlier this year.
As STAT reported, “police officers and security personnel took conference badges from five physicians and scientists sharing copies of an opinion piece published on April 29 in Diabetes Care. All were ordered to leave.”
