Dear Dr. Ng and Members of the NASPGHAN Council,

We write as members of the Association of Pakistani-origin Gastroenterologists of North America (APGNA), which represents adult and pediatric gastroenterologists of Pakistani descent practicing across the United States. Many of our pediatric members belong to NASPGHAN, and all of us share its commitment to the health of children.

We begin with appreciation. Council was placed under real pressure to withdraw Dr. Zulfiqar Bhutta’s keynote invitation, and it declined to do so. Reaffirming that a lecture on reducing global child mortality belongs at a pediatric meeting, regardless of the speaker’s views on other matters, was the right decision and took courage. We thank you for it.

We also want to state our values plainly, in one breath. We condemn antisemitism and Islamophobia. We mourn the Israeli civilians and children killed on October 7, 2023, and we mourn the Palestinian children who have been killed since. We do not rank these losses. A society devoted to child health should be able to say all of this in a single sentence, and we respectfully note that the President’s letter did not.

That omission is our first concern. The letter names one community’s grief in detail and the other’s not at all. For members of Palestinian, Arab, Muslim and South Asian backgrounds, who are not few in our field, the silence was not neutral; it read as a statement about whose pain counts.

Our second concern is the consultation described. The letter lists Jewish colleagues, two rabbis, a Jewish inclusion group and organizations devoted to antisemitism, all of whom deserved to be heard. It does not mention anyone consulted who could contextualize Dr. Bhutta’s statements, or any member from the communities he comes from. A process that hears only one side cannot fairly be described as broad.

Our third concern is fairness to Dr. Bhutta himself. By describing his public commentary as something the “vetting process” should have “identified,” the letter implies he was a mistake that slipped through, even while Council concluded his views did not warrant withdrawal. Those two positions cannot both be true. We understand the request to preview his presentation was made in good faith and that he agreed to it graciously; we simply ask that NASPGHAN now say clearly that his invitation was earned, not regretted.

We therefore make three modest requests:

A brief supplementary statement acknowledging the suffering of Palestinian children alongside that already expressed, and affirming Dr. Bhutta’s standing as keynote speaker.

Inclusion of Palestinian, Arab and Muslim members, as well as the broader community of Middle Eastern and South Asian physicians, among the parties consulted in any review of speaker-selection and vetting procedures.

A commitment that scrutiny of invited speakers’ public statements will be applied consistently, under written criteria, to all speakers.

We raise these points as colleagues who want NASPGHAN to succeed.

Respectfully,

The undersigned members of the Association of Pakistani-origin Gastroenterologists of North America (APGNA)