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.
This is part of a paragraph of the article being distributed:
“These proposed cuts would eliminate the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities, which they claim “is replete with DEI [diversity, equity, and inclusion] expenditures,” the Fogarty International Center, which is responsible for funding degree programs in foreign countries that benefit the health of all, including Americans, and the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health, whose charge includes supporting research and offering information about complementary health approaches in the setting of whole-person health.”
This is ideological. It’s got nothing to do with medical science and research.
> 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
> If this policy continues, it will greatly reduce the number of funded programs or even eliminate them. Will the reduction and elimination of these major programs be in the best interest of science and improve the health of the American public in general and individuals with diabetes in particular?
They are very concretely worried because the current administration is demonstrably directing funding for research projects away from scientists (and into the Trump family pockets, which is equally well documented. They are worried because Diabetes research is threatened by budget cuts.
As a fellow scientist, I support what the organization did.
We are scientists, and I don’t want to go to a real scientific conference (this is a medicine conference after all, not some circle jerk social sciences meeting, where all need to state at every opportunity they are against the Bad Orange Men, or risk losing all funding) and have these political stunts forcing some group thinking.
If they really wanted to distribute political opinion pieces, they would do it outside the premises at the entrance to the building. But not, they felt they had to shove it down everyone’s throats while others were trying to work.
> 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.
They were actually distributing an opinion piece titled “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!”
It’s an editorial published in the journal of the conference organizer. Calling it an “opinion piece” is incorrect—the journal is still publishing it as part of its proceedings.
Astronomical journals frequently have articles going through the economics of various telescope proposals. The analogy would be someone in management at one of those conferences with an economic stake in one of the telescopes forbidding that team from distributing its work while others continue to do so.
It’s obviously a breach of any reasonable code of conduct. It’s obviously a departure from precedent. And it would make anyone outside that conference really curious about the specific allegations raised in the quashed paper.
The only people who use this phrasing are pro-Trump propagandists. It's an attempt to make criticism sound superficial rather than a reasonable objection to actions. Don't be fooled.
reply