Buenos Aires: Milei and the cost of scientific research: a personal perspective from Argentine politician and socio-politician
Milei received a 30% of the vote to win the open primary election on August 13th and oust candidates from the conservative and centre- left coalitions. Current opinion polls are changing almost daily, but often put him ahead. If, on 22 October, no candidate wins 45% of the vote or 40% with at least a 10 percentage point lead over the runner-up, a run-off election will be held in November.
There is no question that Argentina is in a deep economic crisis and needs to make important changes. The country has experienced 8 years of economic hardship, with an annual inflation rate of 120%, and is in debt to the International Monetary Fund. Forty per cent of the population lives in poverty. Yet there has always been cultural consensus that education and science are key to the progress and development of the nation, underlying commercial wealth, generating national and international patents and creating technology-based companies.
Sources have said that researchers will leave the country if Milei becomes president. They will be able to make a living in other places because of their talent. But “losing scientists is a problem for the country”.
According to Milei’s logic, the 30 years of basic research underlying these treatments were a parasitic activity conducted at the expense of the state and the people. I have never heard of a politician in my country proposing such extreme ideas since I graduated the University of Buenos Argentine in 1965, and I also worked as a geologist in Argentina for years. Milei’s words have become a daily subject of private and open discussions in the lunch rooms, classrooms and hallways of academic institutions. Many students are talking about going overseas.
The libertarian candidate — who has been likened to outspoken populist leaders such as former US president Donald Trump and former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro — has said that shutting down CONICET, with its 80-billion-peso annual budget (about US$400 million at the time the budget was set), could help to end Argentina’s fiscal crisis. He also thinks that investment in scientific research should come from private, rather than public, sources.
Milei’s party won 30% of the vote in the August primaries, but the conservative Bullrich received 28% of the vote. 27% of the votes went to the party of the current economic minister, who has more centrist views. (Serving President Alberto Fernández is stepping down; he has lost the support of his party after missteps during his administration.)
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“Science is not an artistic hobby for our society, but a way to end poverty and finally develop the country,” says Jorge Aliaga, a physicist at Hurlingham National University in Buenos Aires. It must be of paramount importance.
Knowledge developed by CONICET and Argentina’s national universities has facilitated important achievements — such as the manufacturing of COVID-19 testing kits during the pandemic and the development of drought-resistant soya beans and wheat seeds. onoclonal antibodies are used as a major treatment for diseases. Just weeks ago, CONICET researchers launched the biotechnology company Galtec in Buenos Aires to produce monoclonal antibodies to treat cancer and immunological disease, using an approach that has shown promise in a randomized controlled phase III clinical trial (N. Bannoud et al. They were supposed to Proc. It is the Nation’s Acad. Sci. USA 120, e2214350120; 2023).