LISBON -- In contrast to the low-key security presence at the world's largest cardiology meeting last month in Barcelona -- shortly after that city suffered a horrific terrorist attack -- officials here took a quite different approach for the smaller European Association for the Study of Diabetes meeting.
Armed Portuguese police erected a barrier surrounding the open campus and restricted entry for the approximately 15,000 attendees to two portals, with a metal detector and bag searches for people entering to register without a badge as well. At the European Society of Cardiology meeting, two heavily armed security personnel stood watch outside the main entrance but there were no metal detectors or bag searches for the 31,000 attendees.
But the stronger security wasn't a response to the August terrorist attack in Barcelona, Monika Grüsser, MD, managing director and chief medical officer of EASD, told 51˶ at a press conference opening the meeting here.
"This was the total new concept of the Portuguese police, that they say we have to protect our process better. That was the reason why they make the fence outside and why they have this strict control of persons not looking so reassuring. I think it's really good."
This planning process with the Portuguese police started about a year ago during the planning of the meeting.
"It's the same level of precaution that would be taken where there's a gathering of a large number of people, whether it's a pop concert or whatever. I think this is, sadly, the life we're going to lead from now on," Sally Marshall, MD, editor of the EASD's journal Diabetologia, said at the briefing.
"We have started this morning in the Lady Gaga hall," said Grüsser, referring to the pop star's 2014 concert in the same building. "What do you expect? If she gives singing and we have our opening lecture ... we should be as safe as we can be."
The press conference also addressed another type of freedom and safety -- online and social media sharing of slides and data from presentations that raised so much controversy at the American Diabetes Association meeting in June. ADA staff policed sessions to squelch picture-taking and asked people who tweeted photos of presentation slides to delete those tweets, citing presenters' intellectual property rights.
"The ADA were concerned on behalf of the presenters that the slides were being photographed and then tweeted around the world and that would have an impact on a journal not accepting the data for publication," Marshall said. "The major journals have said it's not an issue. The fact that a slide's been on Twitter does not mean you can't publish it in the New England Journal or elsewhere. I think the ADA overreacted a little."
The EASD has gone the opposite direction, making all conference presentations available to watch online since 2008, Grüsser noted.
EASD President Juleen Zierath, PhD, called herself a Twitter convert and said she hoped attendees at the conference embrace it. "It's a great way to communicate with people who can't be here the highlights of the meeting."