SAN DIEGO -- Reporters who cover medical meetings are used to certain restrictions: No unauthorized photos or videos at the meeting. No photos in the exhibit hall. But this year's photo and video -- and social media -- policy at the American Diabetes Association's annual meeting here caused more than the usual stir.
"Information shared by presenters during the Scientific Sessions is often unpublished data. Taking photos of or recording the content of meeting room slides, poster presentations, and supporting materials is prohibited, considered intellectual piracy, and unethical," reads the . "Attendees who ignore this policy will be at risk of losing their badge credentials."
ADA employees were in the rooms during meeting sessions to make sure no one took unauthorized photos of presenters' slides, and meeting attendees took to Twitter to voice their concerns. "Wow, never seen such an effort to diminish knowledge sharing. The photo enforcers are everywhere," tweeted Jake Mathon, a healthcare consultant, on the hashtag #2017ADA.
"How to take an outdated no-photos policy to the next level of ridiculous: enforce it in a session on *open innovation*," tweeted Holly Witteman, PhD, of Laval University in Quebec City.
ADA also asked people who tweeted photos of presentation slides to delete those tweets, which drew more criticism. "There's no question that legally the @AmDiabetesAssn can ban tweeting of photos of #2017ADA slides," tweeted Jeremy Faust, MD, an emergency physician from Boston. "It's just idiotic. That's the issue."
Some meeting presenters openly flouted the policy. "[Here is] our work at #2017ADA -- you can take a pic and share it in social networks," tweeted , a diabetes researcher from Ferrol, Spain, above a photo of her group's poster.
The ADA said it was just following the law. "The Association understands and appreciates the desire to publicly share photos of research slides and posters presented at Scientific Sessions, especially considering today's technology and the prevalence of instant communication via social media," Linda Cann, the association's senior vice-president for professional services and education, said in a statement. "However, all research slides and posters are the legal property of each of the research authors and their study team, not the Association. Many presentations include unpublished data, and while researchers are eager to share it with their peers through their presentation at Scientific Sessions, they maintain legal ownership of their research work (intellectual property)."
"As the convener of the Scientific Sessions ... the Association is legally obligated to protect the legal rights of the study authors who submit their work for presentation," she continued. "Upon registration, all attendees agree to the meeting policies, which includes following all local and federal laws. This includes those related to the intellectual property rights of all parties."
Any reversal of the policy "could unwittingly dismantle the long-standing discourse and engagement of medical and scientific research meetings around the world," Cann added. "This dramatic shift could also restrict medical research to being published manuscripts in order to protect the authors' legal ownership rights."
C. Michael Gibson, MD, a cardiologist and professor of medicine at Harvard who took to Twitter to criticize the policy, said in a phone interview that "in the cardiovascular world, there are no such restrictions; they went away many years ago. We're so accustomed to everyone taking pictures, taking slides, cheering on young scientists, and promoting the meetings through social media that we were shocked to see these draconian measures in place." Gibson, who did not attend the meeting, started a meme on the issue which read, "Say no to deleting; say yes to tweeting."
"Top-tier journals like the New England Journal of Medicine know and expect that people will be sharing slides and images of those slides prior to publication, and that's accepted, so the argument that it's encroaching on people's intellectual property doesn't seem well-founded," Gibson said. Since the presenters share the data publicly at a meeting, "from a [Securities and Exchange Commission] and regulatory perspective, that information is now in the public domain."
In addition to the photo and tweeting restrictions, the association also put restrictions on videography. Unlike other meetings where video crews usually can film anywhere in the meeting venue except for meeting sessions and the exhibit hall, the ADA allowed crews to film only in interview rooms or one of a few specifically designated areas, which were marked on a map.
In addition, all video crews had to show proof of liability insurance, and those crews that were approved had tags put on their cameras reading "Approved camera equipment." "I feel like I'm in 'Orange is the New Black,'" said one video crew member.
When asked about the video policies, an ADA spokeswoman said in an email that the liability insurance "is standard for TV news crews, and the pre-designated areas are to help prevent any accidents/injuries given the number of attendees at the meeting – nearly 17,000."
The Association of Health Care Journalists (AHCJ), which in 2010 on policies restricting reporters from photographing meeting presentations, also weighed in on the policy. "Both freelancers and staffers cover meetings of medical societies and placing restrictions on audio, video, and photography greatly restricts how we need to do our jobs," wrote Jeanne Erdmann, a freelance journalist and chair of AHCJ's Freelance Committee, in an email. "We also cannot attend every meeting, and following the proceedings on Twitter -- especially when slides are included -- helps keep us up-to-date in our respective beats." (The ADA does allow reporters to record meeting sessions for use in their work.)
The organization did offer the possibility of a change in policy: "After this year's meeting, we will reevaluate the policy and our legal obligations to the researchers who present at Scientific Sessions," Cann's statement concluded.
Editor's note: Story author Joyce Frieden is a member of the Association of Health Care Journalists' Right to Know Committee, which is looking into this issue.