4 ms·

Their so-called "protest" was just distributing an article already published in the journal of the medical association to which this conference is attached, whi

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. Those who were not interested presumably refused to take the article copy or did not read it. Even on HN you can still see claims that USA is a "free" country where anyone can say anything about the government, without consequences. This example shows clearly that this claim is false.

roenxi 5mo ago
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.
- JumpCrisscross 5mo ago
  > 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.
  - ciupicri 5mo ago
    > 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.
    - JumpCrisscross 5mo ago
      > 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 antibody has been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to prevent type 1 diabetes in people aged 8 years and older with stage 2 type 1 diabetes. As a result, we are a major step closer to a cure for type 1 diabetes. With the potential to prevent the disease, screening programs for type 1 diabetes are being initiated worldwide. … Two examples are the Human Islet Research Network (HIRN) and the Integrated Islet Distribution Program (IIDP). HIRN aims to advance our understanding of how β-cells are lost in human type 1 diabetes and to find inventive strategies to protect or replace β-cells in people with the disease.” 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. [1] https://diabetesjournals.org/care/article/49/6/901/164764/Misguided-Brushes-of-a-Pen-Continue-to-Dismantle https://diabetesjournals.org/care/article/49/6/901/164764/Mi...
      - roenxi 5mo ago
        > 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.
  - MemoryHoleHQ 5mo ago
    It wasn't in any way an article, and much less an article about diabetes. They were distributing an Opinion Piece which title was (yes, this is the full title): Misguided Brushes of a Pen Continue to Dismantle and Destroy Biomedical Research in the United States: We Can No Longer Afford Complacency and Fear. We Must All Act Now!
- wyldfire 5mo ago
  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.
  - JumpCrisscross 5mo ago
    > 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.”
- skywhopper 5mo ago
  Yes, but this detail is crucial to continuing to make progress on diabetes treatment and research. So it’s actually more fundamental than anything else.
zdragnar 5mo ago
[flagged]
- noelsusman 5mo ago
  They removed him due to fear of reprisal from the federal government. How could that have nothing to do with free speech?
- JumpCrisscross 5mo ago
  > This has nothing to do whatsoever with free speech Freedom of speech is a philosophical concept broader than the First Amendment. The conference organizers broke their own code of conduct to censor this article’s distribution. That violates principles of free speech. If they did it at the behest of a government official, that would be a First Amendment issue. We don’t have any evidence of that right now, but it isn’t a question which has been seriously investigated yet.
866-RON-0-FEZ 5mo ago
> Even on HN you can still see claims that USA is a "free" country where anyone can say anything about the government, without consequences. The first amendment applies to public spaces. Not private conferences which are invite-only. You're on an anti-U.S. tear in this discussion but lack understanding of the basics. For the same reason I can't show up at your office and start handing out religious materials and/or pornography (take your pick) to everyone showing up for work and claim it's a free speech issue and my right to do so. As someone else pointed out below, this exact argument was used to ban apps lacking "correct" moderation from the app stores a few years ago.

roenxi 5mo ago

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.

JumpCrisscross 5mo ago
> 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.
- ciupicri 5mo ago
  > 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.
  - JumpCrisscross 5mo ago
    > 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 antibody has been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to prevent type 1 diabetes in people aged 8 years and older with stage 2 type 1 diabetes. As a result, we are a major step closer to a cure for type 1 diabetes. With the potential to prevent the disease, screening programs for type 1 diabetes are being initiated worldwide. … Two examples are the Human Islet Research Network (HIRN) and the Integrated Islet Distribution Program (IIDP). HIRN aims to advance our understanding of how β-cells are lost in human type 1 diabetes and to find inventive strategies to protect or replace β-cells in people with the disease.” 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. [1] https://diabetesjournals.org/care/article/49/6/901/164764/Misguided-Brushes-of-a-Pen-Continue-to-Dismantle https://diabetesjournals.org/care/article/49/6/901/164764/Mi...
    - roenxi 5mo ago
      > 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.
- MemoryHoleHQ 5mo ago
  It wasn't in any way an article, and much less an article about diabetes. They were distributing an Opinion Piece which title was (yes, this is the full title): Misguided Brushes of a Pen Continue to Dismantle and Destroy Biomedical Research in the United States: We Can No Longer Afford Complacency and Fear. We Must All Act Now!
wyldfire 5mo ago
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.
- JumpCrisscross 5mo ago
  > 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.”
skywhopper 5mo ago
Yes, but this detail is crucial to continuing to make progress on diabetes treatment and research. So it’s actually more fundamental than anything else.

zdragnar 5mo ago

[flagged]

noelsusman 5mo ago
They removed him due to fear of reprisal from the federal government. How could that have nothing to do with free speech?
JumpCrisscross 5mo ago
> This has nothing to do whatsoever with free speech Freedom of speech is a philosophical concept broader than the First Amendment. The conference organizers broke their own code of conduct to censor this article’s distribution. That violates principles of free speech. If they did it at the behest of a government official, that would be a First Amendment issue. We don’t have any evidence of that right now, but it isn’t a question which has been seriously investigated yet.

866-RON-0-FEZ 5mo ago

> Even on HN you can still see claims that USA is a "free" country where anyone can say anything about the government, without consequences. The first amendment applies to public spaces. Not private conferences which are invite-only. You're on an anti-U.S. tear in this discussion but lack understanding of the basics. For the same reason I can't show up at your office and start handing out religious materials and/or pornography (take your pick) to everyone showing up for work and claim it's a free speech issue and my right to do so. As someone else pointed out below, this exact argument was used to ban apps lacking "correct" moderation from the app stores a few years ago.