President Javier Milei’s government waded into another controversy this week when it described disabled people in a government resolution deploying archaic language such as “idiot”, “imbecile” and “mentally deficient.”
In a resolution issued by the The Agencia Nacional de Discapacidad (ANDIS) agency for the disabled on January 16, which is dependent on the Health Ministry, the Milei administration used offensive terminology in an annex, describing some of those under its charge as "idiots," "mentally deficient" and "imbeciles" in the Official Gazette.
The resolution established parameters by which individuals will be evaluated in order to obtain, or continue to receive, a disability allowance. In its annex, the levels of intellectual development of the “mentally retarded” are described.
The terminology drew the repudiation of the organisations representing the sector as archaic, discriminatory and violating United Nations resolutions to which Argentina adheres.
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Seven human rights organisations – including the ACIJ (Asociación Civil por la Igualdad) and CELS (Centro de Estudios Legales y Sociales) – urged ANDIS to urgently repeal the resolution, stating it "violates the rights of the handicapped," as enshrined in international conventions ratified by Argentina (Law 27,044).
Reacting to the complaints, the government rolled back its resolution on Thursday, admitting it would modify the “obsolete terminology.”
The resolution and the controversial annex “will be modified according to current medical and regulatory standards, with the aim of ensuring that the terminology used is aligned with international references,” ANDIS said in a social media post, clarifying that these changes will not modify “its evaluation criteria."
The following day, ANDIS announced that it had dismissed an employee, Miriam Améndola, from her role of medical oversight coordinator.
It also pointed the finger at Améndola’s predecessor, Tatiana Alvarado, who had been involved in drafting the document before departing the agency.
ANDIS chief Diego Spagnuolo – who signed the resolution – acknowledged the seriousness of the matter and said on social media that those responsible had already been dismissed.
Critics observed that he was responsible for the resolution.
The changes in the regulations passed practically unnoticed. Last Thursday, a popular social media account, Arrepentidos de Milei, shared the news, which rapidly went viral.
‘Medical retards’
The terms appeared in the Annex of Resolution 187/2025 drafted by ANDIS to define the “medical criteria” to measure the disabled, a requisite needed since last September (Decree 843/2024) for receiving pensions.
A section entitled "Mental Retards" classifies people as "idiots," "imbeciles" or "mentally deficient" varying from "profound" and "moderate" to "light" to determine the corresponding pension.
The new phraseology is copied word for word from a 1998 decree signed by then-president Carlos Menem, the ultra-liberal Peronist from whom Milei draws inspiration.
Critics highlighted that the terminology was in line with Milei’s own rhetorical flourishes – he habitually dubs his critics “idiots,” “brainless” and “mongoloid,” if not “sons of bitches” – pejoratives he applies to “woke culture,” a “cancer” which he considers necessary to extirpate from society
In comments reported by the EFE news agency, ACIJ lawyer Agostina Quiroz said expressions "reproduce and reinforce historic prejudices which make the discrimination against the handicapped more acute," considering it "particularly problematic that it be the state resorting to this discourse when they should be the ones fighting it. "
Quiroz said that the resolution reproduces "the medical model of the handicapped, which is being overtaken by the social model where being handicapped is understood as the interaction between the characteristics of the person and the barriers present in their environment so that the focus should not fall on ´deficiency’ nor in the efforts to ´normalise it’ via medical treatment (as in the medical model) but on the community and the state, which must be transformed to ensure the full participation of handicapped people. "
A February 7 ACIJ communiqué affirmed "that there no disabled people who cannot work but they all can in the measure they are given the required support.”
"The fact that the public continues using these terms generates grave damage to them [the disabled] and to their families, as well as to society as a whole by reinforcing stereotypes and attitudinal barriers which work against the construction of fairer and more inclusive communities," she concluded.
– TIMES/AFP/NA
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