10 April 2024
Addressed to:
President of the Republic of Argentina, Javier Milei
Head of the Cabinet of Ministers, Nicolás Posse
President of CONICET, Daniel Salamone
Secretary of Innovation, Science and Technology, Alejandro Cosentino
Dear President Milei, Honorable Posse, Dr. Salamone, and Honorable Cosentino,
As the Executive Committee of the American Association of Biological Anthropologists, we write to express our deep concern for the severe budget cuts being made to several scientific institutions, including the Argentine National Research Council (CONICET).
Echoing the strong statements of other international scientific organizations, such as the prominent journals Nature[1] and Science[2], and the wise words from 68 Nobel Laureates[3], we ask that you reconsider the funding and personnel cuts that hinder the excellent and world-renowned Argentine scientific community.
To highlight the immense value of biological anthropology research in Argentina, we point to the numerous contributions published in our Association’s journal, the American Journal of Biological Anthropology. In just the last ten years, the Journal has published more than 46 peer-reviewed articles from Argentine scientists.
These research projects cover important topics related to human health and well-being, such as the maternal and newborn health of people living in high- versus low-altitudes based in the Province of Jujuy, biological differences between human agriculturalists and horticulturalists from the lower Paraná River Delta, and fertility differences between women living in urban and those living in agropastoral communities of Argentina, to highlight just a few. Furthermore, many biological anthropologists in Argentina are involved in the Programa de Referencia y Biobanco Genómico de la Población Argentina (PoblAr), an initiative aimed to analyze the genomic and associated metadata diversity compiled across several regions of Argentina. The Equipo Argentino de Antropología Forense has been foundational to the development of humanitarian applications of forensic anthropology around the world. There is also essential, long-term research on the non-human primate communities in Argentina that shed light on monkeys as viral reservoirs, the essential roles that these primates play in their ecological environments, and the biological stress primates experience with changing climate. Biological anthropologists in Argentina are discovering key information about climate change specific to Argentina through geological, paleontological, and archaeological research. This scientific research provides an understanding of how humans interface with our environments, and how changes to our environment affect our health and well-being. This is the knowledge that will inform decision-making in the future as Argentina and the world confront rapidly changing environments.
Argentine science features prominently in our Association’s Journal, and this pattern of active knowledge generation is reflected in all other scientific journals in our discipline. Because of the immense scientific insight that Argentine scientists provide, our Association is deeply concerned about the incredible loss to human knowledge that will occur if these dramatic cuts to science in Argentina continue. This basic scientific research does not just advance human knowledge, but is also a key driver of innovation and productivity.[4,5]
We ask that you halt and reverse the financial cuts to your scientific resources and the dismissal of administrative personnel. Investment in Argentina’s scientific infrastructure, professional scientists, and scientists-in-training are essential to the betterment of the international scientific community and the world.
Sincerely,
Executive Committee of the American Association of Biological Anthropologists
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