When dogma trumps science

The US administration's health and science funding cuts challenge NZ's role in global research in areas such as vaccines and climate change.

- BY VERONIKA MEDUNA

One of glaciologist Lauren Vargo's summer highlights over the past two years has been to take a group of teenage girls to Mt Ruapehu to introduce them to the outdoors, science and art. They would stay in an alpine hut, practise moving safely across snowfields and the volcanic landscape, sharpen their observational skills by sketching mountain ridges and design their own research projects. Vargo, a research fellow at Victoria University of Wellington Te Herenga Waka, also hoped to inspire the girls to consider working in research or other careers that remain dominated by men.

Girls* on Ice Aotearoa is for 15- to 16-year-old girls but also encourages applications from female-identifying, non-binary and intersex students. It is one of many international branches that grew from Inspiring Girls Expeditions, which started in the US in 1999, and financial support came from the US Embassy in New Zealand. Vargo, who moved here from the US in 2016, took part in the 2022 American expedition in Alaska as a science instructor.

But within weeks of Donald Trump's inauguration for his second term as US president, Vargo heard that Girls* on Ice Alaska had lost the bulk of its funding. Not long after, she received a letter from the US Department of State informing her the embassy grant would be cancelled because it no longer “effectuates agency priorities”.

The executive order to end “radical and wasteful government diversity, equity and inclusion programs” was one of 26 Trump signed during his first day back in office. Girls* on Ice Aotearoa was among the first international projects to lose its US funding.

Since then, the Trump administration has “unleashed an unprecedented rapid-fire campaign to remake ... vast swathes of the federal government's scientific and public health infrastructure”, according to