[flagged]
[flagged]
Scientists ejected from diabetes conference for distributing journal reprints
101–110 of 245 posts
Re: Scientists ejected from diabetes conference for distributing journal reprints
#102Earlier quoted context omitted.
Their so-called "protest" was just distributing an article already published in the journal of the medical association to which this conference is attached, which probably discussed matters of interest for the attendance, like the future of research financing in this domain. I can hardly think of a more peaceful form of protest, which only intended to make aware the participants about the content of the article. Thos…
I'm no doctor, but I suspect the conference organisers wanted the conference to focus on diabetes. Rather than exploring whether the USA is a "free" country where anyone can say anything about the government, without consequences.
One of science's most critical roles is to inform policymakers. And if they can't do that job effectively then it's right and just to point out the problems preventing it. Scientific conferences that fear critiques of the government chill new scientific publications.
It's not like they were handing out "Trump sleeps during press events" posters. You should read the article they distributed, it's very relevant to the conference attendees.
Re: Scientists ejected from diabetes conference for distributing journal reprints
#103[flagged]
> they would do it outside the premises at the entrance to the building
If they were distributing fliers, sure. They weren’t. They were distributing an article published in the conference organizer’s own journal. That’s what academics do at conferences!
> risk losing all funding
They’ve already lost the funding. That’s what is being pointed out. OMB is using accounting shenanigans to circumvent the will of the Congress to cut funding to diabetes research, including, based on the article, some pretty serious and nonpartisan stuff.
Re: Scientists ejected from diabetes conference for distributing journal reprints
#104Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm no doctor, but I suspect the conference organisers wanted the conference to focus on diabetes. Rather than exploring whether the USA is a "free" country where anyone can say anything about the government, without consequences.
One of science's most critical roles is to inform policymakers. And if they can't do that job effectively then it's right and just to point out the problems preventing it. Scientific conferences that fear critiques of the government chill new scientific publications. It's not like they were handing out "Trump sleeps during press events" posters. You should read the article they distributed, it's very relevant to the…
> One of science's most critical roles is to inform policymakers
Yup. From their article: “DCCT/EDIC revolutionized the approach to treating people with type 1 diabetes, establishing standards for glucose control and resulting in improved quality of life along with clinically significant reductions in the risk of diabetes complications and major adverse cardiovascular events.
After 44 years, it continues to provide new insights, including showing that in adults with type 1 diabetes, neurodegeneration is likely the result of non–Alzheimer disease mechanisms. DPP/DPPOS, which enrolled people with prediabetes, demonstrated the benefit of intensive lifestyle intervention and metformin in reducing the risk of developing diabetes. These findings led Congress to approve an amendment to the Social Security Act to establish the Medicare Diabetes Prevention Program and provide lifestyle intervention services for eligible individuals.”
Re: Scientists ejected from diabetes conference for distributing journal reprints
#105[flagged]
As TFA explains and other posters have also mentioned, they did not violate any code of conduct. Only the organizers have violated the code of conduct. A conference for the members of a medical association has the stated purpose of providing a venue for the exchange of information between the members. When the authors of an article published in the journal of the said medical association distribute free copies of tha…
Any reasonable person, would understand that a scientific organization aim of promoting the share of information between members, applies to scientific information, not to political propaganda.
Re: Scientists ejected from diabetes conference for distributing journal reprints
#106Earlier quoted context omitted.
> suspect the conference organisers wanted the conference to focus on diabetes The article they were distributing is pretty clearly about diabetes. If the actions it describes continues, significant efforts towards treating and even curing diabetes will be lost.
> 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 (1). Since then, there have been actions by the administration that have caused grave health consequences, and their current approach will continue to do so. It sounds to me like criticism of the government.
It's not like the article is indirectly related to the subject of the conference. It is critical of the government, but not in the "human rights abuses of this administration threaten us all" way (though even that seems reasonable to discuss).
Is it your position that if an article is critical of a world government it must not be discussed at a scientific conference? Or even "you should expect to get ejected from a conference if you criticize the host government"? Because believe it or not, that's not been a problem in the USA prior to Trump. And it runs contrary to how science should work.
Re: Scientists ejected from diabetes conference for distributing journal reprints
#107Headline is weird. It's not a copyright thing, as I had assumed. It was because it was an editorial criticizing how the administration is running the NIH.
It was because the group made the mistake of inviting the federal appointee currently running NIH. This would probably have been fine if this administration was not comprised of individuals that cannot abide any sort of pushback. The protest would not have been needed without the official there - but their presence made the organizers so nervous that they tossed the editor in chief of their own journal. The problem i…
> problem is how deep the federal dollars go into these systems
The problem is no state AG suing to stop OMB and HHS from illegally re-appropriating funds directed by the Congress for diabetes research. Like, the multi-year funding shenanigan called out in the article is literally accounting fuckery.
Re: Scientists ejected from diabetes conference for distributing journal reprints
#108Earlier quoted context omitted.
> suspect the conference organisers wanted the conference to focus on diabetes The article they were distributing is pretty clearly about diabetes. If the actions it describes continues, significant efforts towards treating and even curing diabetes will be lost.
> 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 (1). Since then, there have been actions by the administration that have caused grave health consequences, and their current approach will continue to do so. It sounds to me like criticism of the government.
It was criticizing systematic anti-science decisions which lead to bad outcomes for diabetes research, and ultimately those with diabetes.
The idea that a science based defense of science is anti-government and therefore off limits for a conference is downright Soviet.
Re: Scientists ejected from diabetes conference for distributing journal reprints
#109They were quietly, politely protesting, but protesting. If two identical conferences had a rule against protesting, but conference A had a plan to have zero tolerance for it, and conference B decided to play it by ear, evaluate based on the disruption and reasonableness and respond as the situation required ... I'd rather go to conference A. I'd feel the same way about a no smoking rule.
> They were quietly, politely protesting, but protesting
How? Researchers handing out a journal from the conference organizer’s own journal is now protesting and banned at conferences?
The “protestors” include the editor of the journal. They knew what the rules were and they followed them. If Conference A gets to yank research because a non-science MBA at the journal thinks it could hurt their stock price, and Conference B doesn’t allow that, which conference do you think will do more important work?
Re: Scientists ejected from diabetes conference for distributing journal reprints
#110Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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 (1). Since then, there have been actions by the administration that have caused grave health consequences, and their current approach will continue to do so. It sounds to me like criticism of the government.
> sounds to me like criticism of the government The article is not a long read [1]. It describes how current policy is dismantling and destroying the research infrastructure for diabetes, infrastructure which has started or has already borne significant fruit. It encapsulates a criticism of the administration, and it’s definitely scathing, but it’s far from a partisan rant. For example: “This CD3-directed monoclonal…
> The funding for that research is being cut. If you have a loved one with, or at risk of getting, diabetes, this could be the difference between vastly different levels of quality of life and years of life versus death.
So just to jump back to the "The article they were distributing is pretty clearly about diabetes" thing mere comments ago - this seems to be about budgets and administrative matters. Those are generic concerns. In fact, in my unhumble opinion, this looks a lot like the sort of document written by someone with poor marketing skills worried that their budget is going to get cut in the near future. Especially since the conference organisers didn't think there was special merit to it.
There isn't much (if any) research here. It can reasonably be said to be out of scope for a diabetes conference if the organisers don't want to include it. All of us would like a larger budget, we don't need to listen to other people present on the topic of how they also want larger budgets. That is a political topic.