[HN Gopher] Mexico to US livestock trade halted due to screwworm...
___________________________________________________________________
Mexico to US livestock trade halted due to screwworm spread
Author : burnt-resistor
Score : 237 points
Date : 2025-08-09 14:30 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.usda.gov)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.usda.gov)
| Glyptodon wrote:
| One more thing where we're going back in time. Sure seems like a
| new decline and fall is coming bit by bit.
| neom wrote:
| I'd never head of screwworm before, turns out it's not a worm,
| this page is pretty decent: https://cr.usembassy.gov/sections-
| offices/aphis/screwworm-pr...
|
| "A screwworm infestation is caused by larvae of the fly
| Cochliomyia hominivorax. These larvae can infest wounds of any
| warm-blooded animal, including human beings. The screwworm fly is
| about twice the size of a regular house fly and can be
| distinguished by its greenish-blue color and its large reddish-
| orange eyes.
|
| Infestations can occur in any open wound, including cuts,
| castration wounds, navels of newborn animals, and tick bites. The
| wounds often contain a dark, foul-smelling discharge. Screwworm
| larvae distinguish themselves from other species by feeding only
| on the living flesh, never dead tissue. Once a wound is infested,
| the screwworm can eventually kill the animal or human, literally
| eating it alive." - Sounds great.
| guerrilla wrote:
| > Screwworm larvae distinguish themselves from other species by
| feeding only on the living flesh, never dead tissue.
|
| What assholes. :(
| lazide wrote:
| Yeah the switch on these guys was definitely flipped to
| 'evil'
| mc32 wrote:
| The key to managing this pest [edit: after it breaches the
| isthmus program] is through active monitoring, treating
| infested wounds as well as conducting castration and dehorning
| in less active months. It's not like cattle herds didn't exist
| prior to the 1950s.
| tptacek wrote:
| That's in fact not how screwworms are managed; the "border"
| of screwworm prevalence was managed by spreading sterilized
| male screwworms.
| mc32 wrote:
| That's how we manage them now. I mean before we had that
| program, we dealt with the pest/infestation that way and we
| can in the future too if need be to combat what's getting
| through. Obviously neutralizing them down in the isthmus is
| preferred but we're seeing them come up from Mexico now. So
| if you have a minor infestation that's how you treat it to
| address whatever gets missed by the sterilization program.
|
| It doesn't render the cattle or meat from the cattle
| useless. Obviously if affected cattle are untreated they
| will succumb to the pest.
| tptacek wrote:
| The whole reason this is newsworthy is that the system we
| had prior to eradication was not good.
| mc32 wrote:
| Yes, obviously; but it's not the end of the cattle
| industry as some make it out to be.
|
| To clarify: it was never eradicated. It's been actively
| managed and kept at bay. Now it's punching through some
| holes.
| tptacek wrote:
| Because we stopped doing the thing that works. Your
| earlier point, that we can just as easily return to herd
| management strategies, was wrong.
| mc32 wrote:
| What did we stop doing? The sterilization program is
| ongoing.
|
| There are always periodic outbreaks in Central America
| and Mexico. The current one started in 2023.
|
| One common vector is illegal cattle trafficking.
| colechristensen wrote:
| Here's a video describing the system that fell apart which had
| been working for a long time to keep these flies out of north
| america
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Olj8arvfYj4
| neutered_knot wrote:
| A story from 2020 about how effective the US funded anti-
| screwworm program used to be.
|
| https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2020/05/flesh-ea...
|
| Archive link: https://archive.ph/3sD9d
| ajmurmann wrote:
| Why is it "used to be"? I've heard about the program before and
| thought it was incredible. What happened to it?
|
| Edit: Brief research tells me the screwworms broke though to
| Mexico in November 2024 after cases started increasing north of
| the Darian Gap throughout 2023
| (https://www.aphis.usda.gov/news/program-update/new-world-
| scr...). It does seem like the funding now is happening through
| USDA rather than USAID (https://www.aphis.usda.gov/livestock-
| poultry-disease/cattle/...) and there likely was a funding gap.
| As much as I like to blame the current administration for
| defunding USAID the breakthrough happened earlier.
| cogman10 wrote:
| DOGE. It was ran by USAID.
| VladVladikoff wrote:
| It was failing long before this. The border used to be down
| by Panama.
| cogman10 wrote:
| The first sign of spread past panama was seen in Nov
| 2024. Parasites can spread fast and the US/Mexico needed
| to react fast to the fact that it spread past panama.
|
| In a critical time when monitoring and action were
| desperately needed, we eliminated the agency that'd do
| that.
| literalAardvark wrote:
| It wasn't a critical time, it was late.
|
| If there had been any political will for this things
| would have been set in motion since 2023, likely even
| before that when the reports from the scientists working
| on control started pouring in.
|
| Blaming a few weeks of funding lapse one year into an
| outbreak in a control project that's been running for
| decades is absurd.
|
| From a link in this thread: However, since 2023, cases
| have been increasing in number and spreading north from
| Panama to Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala,
| Belize, and Mexico.
| asacrowflies wrote:
| Late is still a critical time...perhaps more critical.
| cogman10 wrote:
| Fair point.
|
| The cost to fight this back will definitely exponentially
| increase.
| tptacek wrote:
| Ok, but where did you get that Nov '24 date from? You
| just agreed with a comment that falsified that claim.
| cogman10 wrote:
| An article I read mentioned that Nov '24 is when the
| flies were spotted in Mexico. I incorrectly assumed that
| meant that is when they breached the panama boarder.
|
| So I agree with the commenter that falsified my claim
| because they are correct, the date of breach was earlier
| and the time to react was then.
| tptacek wrote:
| Gotcha. Thanks! I was just curious.
| smallmancontrov wrote:
| The border didn't magically eradicate the flies on one
| side. Pushing the border down to the Darien Gap took
| work, but we did it before and can do it again. The real
| problem is the gleeful destruction of government capacity
| to do things like this.
| tptacek wrote:
| Yes, that's true, but the point the parent commenter was
| making is that recent previous administrations also
| didn't take this problem seriously.
| smallmancontrov wrote:
| Who was president in 2020 again?
| tptacek wrote:
| You get that there was a president between 2020 and now,
| right? Nobody is sticking up for Trump; they're just
| saying, this particular bad thing isn't a DOGE outcome.
| chris_wot wrote:
| If this particular bad thing was bad before DOGE, then
| it's far worse under DOGE. It's a particularly ridiculous
| argument.
| bbarnett wrote:
| Knowing how and why a thing happened, is far more
| important than political grandstanding.
|
| The doge cuts may affect the _future_ of this program,
| but have _absolutely positively nothing_ to do with the
| situation now. Nothing. Not a thing.
|
| It is fine to say doge will make this neglect worse, but
| the neglect happened for a decade.
|
| And that's important. That's vital to understanding why,
| and how it happened.
|
| And that is absolutely not a ridiculous concept.
| tptacek wrote:
| I don't know about "not a thing"; have to be careful
| about overcorrecting the other direction. The thing I'm
| wary about is just shutting down discussion of
| complicated things as soon as Trump appears. The
| screwworm situation is interesting!
| stretchwithme wrote:
| I see you are bias-free.
| rdl wrote:
| And the Panama border (Darien Gap, specifically) used to
| be a stronger natural barrier; humans have been crossing
| it for years, are starting to graze cows within the
| exclusion zone, etc.
| jfengel wrote:
| Yeah, it got cut back in March.
|
| https://kbhbradio.com/usda-cuts-budget-staff-for-animal-
| dise...
|
| Part of it was restored a couple of months later.
| stretchwithme wrote:
| The flies didn't JUST start moving north this year.
| jiggawatts wrote:
| Which makes cutting funding for the program _that_ much
| stupider, no?
| throwup238 wrote:
| Funding was recently cut but this infestation has been
| building for years. The key failure that caused this current
| outbreak was during COVID. The lockdowns shut down both the
| release flights by the US and the mosquito breeding
| facilities in Latina America, grinding the whole pest control
| program to a halt.
| Noumenon72 wrote:
| Someone must have decided they weren't "essential". Big
| mistake.
| andsoitis wrote:
| Not essential. We can eat less beef. Better for health,
| the environment.
| kristjansson wrote:
| And we should encourage that by leveraging the response
| to a natural disaster to advance your particular policy
| goals?
| ajmurmann wrote:
| Doesn't this impact wildlife as well? Apparently the
| Florida Key Deer was threatened by this a decade ago:
| https://www.avma.org/javma-news/2017-01-15/screwworm-
| infesta...
| Numerlor wrote:
| Screwworm also infects wildlife and occasionally humans,
| it's really not something you want to have in the area if
| you can help it
| 20after4 wrote:
| It sounds like it's more than occasionally infecting
| humans: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-
| health/science-and-diseas...
| raverbashing wrote:
| Funny, you don't seem to have beef with the worm eating
| beef
|
| But it can and does infect humans and other animals
| AlecSchueler wrote:
| They didn't say they had beef with anyone eating beef.
| lazide wrote:
| Screwworms will eat people too, if allowed to. You really
| don't want them in your area.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| Already happening. Beef is rapidly becomming
| unaffordable. A steak at the supermarket is >$20. Can't
| imagine what they cost at a restaurant. I've switched to
| mostly turkey, chicken, and pork.
| alephnerd wrote:
| That's due to issues around monopolization in the Dairy
| and Cattle industry in the US [1].
|
| 70% of all processors in the dairy and cattle industry
| are now owned by 3 companies. Processors don't own cattle
| - they just process raw material like dairy and meat into
| cheese and pasteurized milk and handle the entire supply
| chain. But because they control the supply chain,
| distribution, and even the feed [0] used they can set
| rates and vendors used by farmers.
|
| I posted an article about this earlier on HN, but it
| seems HNers like to talk about antitrust for search
| engines and not dairy and beef production.
|
| Antitrust for me, oligopolic market forces for thee.
|
| [0] - https://www.landolakesinc.com/what-we-do/animal-
| nutrition/
|
| [1] - https://www.thebullvine.com/news/will-your-dairy-
| farm-surviv...
|
| ___________
|
| To u/andrew_lettuce below:
|
| Canada has the exact same issue of processor
| consolidation and oligopoly in agriculture as the US
| [0][1][2]
|
| Arguably, it's worse than the US because this process
| started in the 1990s in Canada [3] versus the 2010s in
| the US.
|
| [0] - https://ca.rbcwealthmanagement.com/terrence-
| galarneau/blog/4...
|
| [1] - https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7350140/
|
| [2] -
| https://financialpost.com/commodities/agriculture/why-
| only-t...
|
| [3] - https://www.eap.mcgill.ca/MagRack/RH/RH_E_97_05.htm
| gruez wrote:
| Is this supported by the data? During the pandemic people
| were also blaming "monopolization" or "consolidation" for
| the rise in grocery prices, but in reality the margins of
| publicly traded supermarket companies went up by a
| percentage point or two.
| alephnerd wrote:
| Yep. To quote The Bullvine [0] (Axios for the cattle and
| dairy industry):
|
| "Here's another force reshaping the industry that has
| nothing to do with immigration: processor consolidation.
| According to industry analysis, just three major
| cooperatives--Dairy Farmers of America, Land O'Lakes, and
| California Dairies--now handle over 80% of the nation's
| milk marketing.
|
| These processors need massive, consistent volumes. New
| processing plants require millions of pounds of milk per
| day to operate efficiently. From a logistical standpoint,
| it's far more efficient to contract with a dozen
| 5,000-cow dairies than 500 smaller operations.
|
| I was at a dairy conference in Wisconsin last year where
| a DFA representative candidly admitted: "We're building
| plants that need 4-5 million pounds per day. We can't
| deal with 200 small farms--we need 10 large ones."
|
| This "processor pull" creates powerful incentives for
| farm-level consolidation. I've seen it happen firsthand
| in regions where a new mega-processing plant opens--
| suddenly, there's pressure on every farm in the area to
| either scale up or get squeezed out"
|
| Also [1]
|
| -----------
|
| The fact that a country like India can support 228 milk
| cooperatives each generating around $500M-2B in revenue
| and outcompete American dairy+cattle in production and
| even reducing environmental impact with marginal
| subsidizes [2] means distribution+processing
| consolidation and it's side effects (cattle monoculture,
| non-competitive prices given to farmers, dairy processers
| NOW becoming animal feed manufacturers) are a good
| example of market failures due to oligopolic control.
|
| No one at the WI and MI state Dem level is chatting about
| this based on some of my own meeting with them recently.
| This is the kind of swing vote topic that can flip all 3
| branches of government in 26 and 28.
|
| If someone like me who has been somewhat hesitant about
| Lina Khan until after getting deep into the dairy
| industry recently, I think HNers should recognize the
| opportunity this provides. 84% of Americans consume dairy
| and dairy products [3] - this is an easy win if some
| sympathy was provided.
|
| Yet, the comments I'm seeing here on HN (and with those
| who I chatted with at the state level Dems) are
| reminiscent to those who blamed autoworkers and
| coalworkers for not learning to code back in 2014.
|
| [0] - https://www.thebullvine.com/dairy-industry/dairys-
| great-cons...
|
| [1] - https://www.thebullvine.com/news/will-your-dairy-
| farm-surviv...
|
| [2] - https://www.thebullvine.com/dairy-industry/from-
| extinction-t...
|
| [3] -
| https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/agriculture/our-
| insights...
| ModernMech wrote:
| Market failures due to oligarchic control is the natural
| end state of capitalism. Everything is going as intended,
| the point of the system is to produce oligarchs, not
| efficient markets.
| alephnerd wrote:
| Not necessarily.
|
| It is mainstream economic and political opinion to
| regulate in some manner to reduce market consolidation
| since the 1940s with the Herfindahl-Hirschman Index.
| ModernMech wrote:
| I think necessarily. I don't think it's possible to
| devise a capitalist system that doesn't devolve into
| oligarchic control. Markets can't be regulated like the
| theory wants, because capitalists just use their wealth
| to take over the politicians. They are able to do this
| because they control so much wealth. To prevent this
| hack, you'd have to take control of capital away from the
| capitalists, thus defeating the core idea of capitalism.
| chrisweekly wrote:
| > "capital away from the capitalists"
|
| or find other ways to reduce the influence of money on
| public elections -- see eg Prof. Lessig (of "Creative
| Commons" fame) and his writings on "Fix Congress First"
| which led to Rootstrikers.org
| gruez wrote:
| By "data" I was referring to data to support the claim
| that consolidation led to increase in prices (eg. margin
| expansion), not that consolidation was happening at all.
| It's the same with supermarkets. There's no doubt that
| consolidation was happening, and there's even evidence
| that it led to higher prices, but the absolute effect on
| grocery bills seems to be marginal.
| rcpt wrote:
| Lina Khan was in power for years and didn't do anything
| about this.
|
| Closest thing was a case where she blocked Sanderson
| Farms from being acquired but that was poultry.
| alephnerd wrote:
| She was starting to concentrate on the Ag consolidation
| [0] but my interpretation is she targeted tech first due
| to the industry's somewhat weaker political position in
| both admins.
|
| She also didn't touch Comcast - and they are the
| kingmakers in PA and DE.
|
| [0] - https://www.law.nyu.edu/news/katzmann-lecture-lina-
| khan-talk...
| jncfhnb wrote:
| Profit margin increasing by a percentage point on a low
| margin business is potentially significant
| gruez wrote:
| It's certainly meaningful for the company involved, but a
| 1% increase in grocer margins means a $100 grocery bill
| becomes $101. It's at best an incomplete explanation for
| the ~20% price increase on grocery prices between 2021
| and 2023.
| andrew_lettuce wrote:
| This isn't true in Canada and we're seeing as big of
| price increases for beef, greater than the US for ground
| beef. This is a supply issue while demand has increased.
| Drought and costs have also impacted herd size
| HillRat wrote:
| Packer and ag consolidation is a huge problem, but the
| underlying issue here is climate change and long-lasting
| droughts; some of the issues with herd size -- the
| smallest since about 1950 -- come from COVID hangover
| when cows weren't getting processed and price-per-head
| plummeted, but the immediate problem is that ranchers
| can't support large herds due to lack of rain and cost of
| feed. We're looking at long-term cost trends that are
| unlikely to reverse or even be significantly ameliorated
| anytime soon.
| alephnerd wrote:
| > the immediate problem is that ranchers can't support
| large herds due to lack of rain and cost of feed
|
| Ranchers that can support large herds (2,000+) are those
| who earn a net profit [0] and are consolidating because
| processors do not want to support small farms.
|
| While environmental factors do play a role, saying it's
| the primary reason is greenwashing of the real
| oligopolies tendencies arising in American Ag industry.
|
| [0] - https://www.thebullvine.com/news/will-your-dairy-
| farm-surviv...
| HDThoreaun wrote:
| Im still getting outer skirt for $8 a pound at my
| grocery. Seems pretty affordable to me
| genghisjahn wrote:
| I get great cuts of steak for less than $10 all the time.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| At a supermarket? Or local butcher/processor?
| genghisjahn wrote:
| Weavers way coop in mt airy Philadelphia.
| throwup238 wrote:
| Maybe for a USDA Prime ribeye or tenderloin at Bristol
| Farms or something.
|
| If you go to an ethnic store like Arabic halaal markets,
| ribeye steaks can be had for less than $10 a pound (but
| they're ungraded). In one of the highest CoL areas in
| Southern California. Costco USDA Prime ribeyes are
| $20/pound and ribeye rounds are $25/pound.
| alephnerd wrote:
| > Better for health, the environment.
|
| India has an equally large cattle industry that
| outproduces American dairy and cattle, yet their industry
| has a fraction of the carbon and methane impact as
| American dairy and cattle rearing [0] because the feed
| used in Indian industry is crop residue instead of
| industrialized meat+grain mixtures.
|
| American Ag is hyperconsolidated into 3 processors [1]
| which makes it difficult for innovations to develop,
| whereas an equally large country like India has 228 local
| run dairy cooperatives and multiple private sector
| players each generating around $500M-2B in revenue.
|
| Yet, the comments I'm seeing here on HN (and with those
| who I chatted with at the state level Dems) are
| reminiscent to those who blamed autoworkers and
| coalworkers for not learning to code back in 2014.
|
| If someone like me who has been somewhat hesitant about
| Lina Khan until after getting deep into the dairy
| industry recently, I think HNers should recognize the
| value this train of thought can have in 2026 and 2028.
|
| 84% of Americans consume dairy or dairy alternative
| (still synthesized using dairy) products [2] - don't make
| this yet another culture war topic
|
| [0] - https://www.thebullvine.com/dairy-industry/from-
| extinction-t...
|
| [1] - https://www.thebullvine.com/news/will-your-dairy-
| farm-surviv...
|
| [2] -
| https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/agriculture/our-
| insights...
| gruez wrote:
| >India has an equally large cattle industry that
| outproduces American dairy and cattle
|
| That's a tad misleading. The statistics I could find only
| says that India outproduces the US in dairy, not beef.
| Rounding
|
| >yet their industry has a fraction of the carbon and
| methane impact as American dairy and cattle rearing [0]
|
| I did a cursory search in your source for "carbon" and
| "methane" and couldn't find anything to back this claim,
| only vague claims about how India does "Regenerative
| farming" and is therefore "low methane".
|
| >because the feed used in Indian industry is crop residue
| instead of industrialized meat+grain mixtures.
|
| That's not scalable and only works because the country is
| poor and beef/dairy consumption isn't high. There's no
| way you can supply American level demand for beef/dairy
| by only using crop residue.
|
| >American Ag is hyperconsolidated into 3 processors which
| makes it difficult for innovations to develop, whereas an
| equally large country like India has 26 state run dairy
| cooperatives and multiple private sector players.
|
| You can easily tell an opposite story about how
| consolidate companies have bigger budgets for R&D and
| capital projects, as opposed to 26 cooperatives each
| trying to implement some sort of strategy.
| mahirsaid wrote:
| Regardless, it's terrible to have around you. Your dog
| will have it too if let be. they do need to be controlled
| if it gets out of hand. Better now than when its a bigger
| problem.
| zahlman wrote:
| Screwworms will also infect humans, with horrific and
| potentially fatal consequences.
| FpUser wrote:
| >"Not essential. We can eat less beef. Better for health,
| the environment."
|
| We can also live in a cave, better for the environment.
| f1shy wrote:
| Or just dissapear (which btw, no joking, is what some
| people propose)
| spamizbad wrote:
| I guess nature is "finding a way" after all...
| artursapek wrote:
| 125lb take
| ben_w wrote:
| While I am a vegetarian and thus am an existence proof,
| there's multiple different ways in which something can be
| "essential".
|
| Anyone going "let's stop a thing today which will messes
| with a non-trivial fraction of our food production in a
| few years' time, without preparing either that food
| sector nor the dietary choices of the consumers before
| that happens" is definitely making a high-risk strategic
| choice.
| crawsome wrote:
| Twice
| delfinom wrote:
| The funding was never cut. That was misinfo spread by
| morons because there was a typical Trump dispute of "mexico
| will pay for it". But the reality was that was in talks of
| a Mexico specific coverage program. The Panama program was
| never touched and is run by a third party agency with
| stakes holders consisting of the USDA and Panama
| government.
|
| But yes the current outbreak built up since COVID.
| fc417fc802 wrote:
| So funding was never cut, but actually some subset did
| experience cuts? Which is it?
|
| We're taking about Mexico to US trade here so the Mexico
| specific subprogram seems directly relevant.
| throwaway5752 wrote:
| Question, are they morons? Is your disagreement with them
| really that simple? Was it necessary to call them that? I
| don't like posting this comment, because it will be
| distracting and tone policing. I was just going to
| downvote and flag your comment and move on, but I think
| you offered some valuable information about the policy
| and I'd like to hear more without the divisive parts that
| add less value.
| timr wrote:
| From the other link on the front page about this subject
| [1]:
|
| > Illegal cattle smuggling, long considered one of the most
| efficient money-laundering routes for the drug cartels
| which terrorised San Pedro Sula, is regarded as the main
| reason for the accelerating advance. Up to 800,000 cattle a
| year are illicitly raised in nature reserves, such as the
| UNESCO-protected Rio Platano Biosphere in Honduras, and
| then smuggled by boat and truck up to Mexico. The flies, of
| course, travel with the livestock, embedded in cattle
| hides, accelerating their advance.
|
| > "Everything indicates that illegal cattle routes from
| Central America are the arteries through which the screw
| worm is circulating again toward Mexico," wrote Jeremy
| Radachowsky, director for Mesoamerican and the Western
| Caribbean at the Wildlife Conservation Society, in a recent
| paper.
|
| So for those who keep trying to make the connection, it has
| little, if anything, to do with US politics. Meanwhile, I
| had no idea that _cattle smuggling_ was a money-laundering
| route for drug cartels. TIL!
|
| [1] https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/science-and-
| diseas...
| fc417fc802 wrote:
| > So for those who keep trying to make the connection, it
| has little, if anything, to do with US politics.
|
| I follow your intended meaning (USAID & etc cuts). But
| taken literally it's US policies and propaganda that
| enable the drug cartels. Our dysfunctions are still
| ultimately the root of the problem.
| 0xDEAFBEAD wrote:
| The world is complex and interdependent. The US, being a
| powerful and influential country, has direct or indirect
| involvement in pretty much everything. That doesn't mean
| we are to blame for everything.
| fc417fc802 wrote:
| I agree. We certainly aren't at fault for the existence
| of organized crime _in general_. However our aggressively
| exported drug policy is very obviously the root that
| props up the Mexican and South American drug cartels
| (among others). There 's decades of academic literature
| and economic analysis on this point.
|
| When a parasite is spreading due to a large scale money
| laundering tactic by a large scale criminal enterprise
| whose scale is only enabled by our policy I class that as
| yet another own goal of the war on drugs.
|
| These downstream effects are somewhat non obvious so I
| think it's worthwhile to point them out when they come
| up.
| timr wrote:
| OK, so let me be even more explicit: for those who
| continue to want to connect this to _recent changes in
| the US political system_ , the relationship is tenuous,
| at best.
| zahlman wrote:
| > Brief research tells me the screwworms broke though to
| Mexico in November 2024 after cases started increasing north
| of the Darian Gap throughout 2023
|
| Elsewhere in the thread people have posted explainer videos
| (of how the program works) from 2024 that seem entirely
| unaware of any such breach.
| starkparker wrote:
| Smuggling's also a contributing factor, at least in Honduras:
| https://www.drovers.com/news/industry/surprising-link-
| betwee...
| GeekyBear wrote:
| > Why is it "used to be"?
|
| > Decades ago, screwworms were endemic throughout Central
| America and the southern US. However, governments across the
| regions used intensive, coordinated control efforts to push
| the flies southward. Screwworms were eliminated from the US
| around 1966, and were pushed downward through Mexico in the
| 1970s and 1980s. They were eventually declared eliminated
| from Panama in 2006, with the population held at bay by a
| biological barrier at the Darien Gap, at the border of Panama
| and Colombia.
|
| However, in 2022, the barrier was breached, and the flies
| began advancing northward, primarily through unmonitored
| livestock movements. The latest surveillance suggests the
| flies are now about 370 miles south of Texas.
|
| https://arstechnica.com/health/2025/08/texas-prepares-for-
| wa...
| stretchwithme wrote:
| Considering the widths of Panama and Mexico, holding them
| south of Panama had to be much cheaper.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| Great (gross) video from the Department of Energy (1960) on how
| the screwworm was defeated: https://youtu.be/QFoOnS6CWSI
| mistyvales wrote:
| Didn't they pull funding for mitigation programs regarding this?
| Or was that rescinded?
| ethan_smith wrote:
| Yes, the USDA-APHIS Screwworm Barrier Maintenance Program had
| its funding reduced by 30% in the 2024 budget, which
| significantly impacted sterile fly production capacity at the
| Panama facility.
| Panoramix wrote:
| citation?
|
| USDA approved an emergency funding of 165 million in 2024 for
| this issue
|
| https://www.aphis.usda.gov/news/agency-announcements/usda-
| ap...
| sejje wrote:
| If he says the budget was reduced, isn't the citation
| already made?
|
| Government budgets are usually public. Do you want a
| secondary source, like a news article?
| fc417fc802 wrote:
| The claims aren't exclusive.
| drhodes wrote:
| A recent, relevant video from Kurzgesagt: How Nuclear Flies
| Protect You from Flesh-Eating Parasites
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxq60I5RSW8
| raaron773 wrote:
| I was wondering where i heard the term screwworm before!
| cogman10 wrote:
| USAID was in charge of the program which monitored screwworm
| spread in central and south america. The way you combat screwworm
| is by releasing sterile male flies in screwworm outbreak areas.
| LMYahooTFY wrote:
| Do you have a source? Because this appears to be false. I can't
| find anything indicating it was funded by USAID.
|
| Everything I'm reading says it has been funded by USDA, and in
| fact funding has been significantly increased during 2025.
| cogman10 wrote:
| https://www.agri-pulse.com/articles/22636-bird-flu-
| screwworm...
|
| USDA manages the production of the sterile flies. USAID was a
| major funding source for the UN Food and Agriculture
| Organization which did the monitoring.
| nnutter wrote:
| I appreciate you citing the USAID funding but you seem to
| be trying to prove a point rather than get to the truth.
| Screwworm detection and prevention was not halted because
| of the USAID shutdown, USDA is actively working on it, one
| can see this by going to usda.gov and searching for
| "screwworm". I really appreciate ajmurmann's edit which
| acknowledges this.
| bryant wrote:
| https://www.agri-pulse.com/articles/22636-bird-flu-
| screwworm...
|
| > Among the GHS projects killed were some dedicated to
| *monitoring and containing avian flu and New World
| Screwworm in Central America, monitoring* avian flu
| outbreaks in Asia and improving the detection of new
| strains, and efforts to combat swine fever, according to
| a person familiar with the situation granted anonymity to
| speak frankly.
|
| you might not have intended to mislead, but the cited
| source indicates that at least some were defined and thus
| halted, in partial contradiction to your line "Screwworm
| detection and prevention was not halted because of the
| USAID shutdown"
| DangitBobby wrote:
| This was downvoted because...?
| mkoubaa wrote:
| I don't see why a trade group of affected industries can't
| collectively fund this
| grej wrote:
| The US successfully eradicated screwworms here in 1966 with a
| brilliant integrated sterile insect technique - I think the very
| first use of it (and had previously funded helping other
| countries control it also). But if we had another outbreak
| spread, I doubt there's any shred of competence left in this
| current gutted federal government to do anything like that again.
| Maybe they can have the new ICE folks try to deport the screwworm
| flies.
| jfengel wrote:
| They announced funding to do it again, back in June. But I have
| no idea if there's anyone around to pay.
| superxpro12 wrote:
| Lead times are asymmetric.
| luketaylor wrote:
| The current plan was announced here a few weeks ago:
| https://www.usda.gov/about-usda/news/press-releases/2025/06/...
| amoshebb wrote:
| Some folks are posting about the regular flights over Panama, and
| I've seen talk about ending screwworm with a "gene drive", but I
| also feel that it doesn't feel necessary.
|
| But a third option I don't see talked about a lot: finish the
| job. We could drop sterile flies all over the USA and Mexico all
| the way into panama with 1950s tech. We have drones now, surely
| some inexpensive paper planes shoved out of the back of hercs
| could cover roughly all of south america for fairly cheap.
| throwup238 wrote:
| There is no finishing the job. Screwworm flies have tons of
| reservoirs in the jungles of Central America that aren't
| practical to eliminate for logistical and ecological reasons.
| We can only control the population in agriculturally important
| areas by constantly releasing the sterile male flies every
| year. Whenever we stop the releases, the flies bounce back in a
| few years.
| rdl wrote:
| The durable reservoirs are in South America, not Central
| America. We actually eradicated it (at least essentially) all
| the way down to the Darien Gap.
| whynotmaybe wrote:
| > This is maintained with stringent animal movement controls,
| surveillance, trapping, and following the proven science to push
| the NWS barrier south in phases as quickly as possible.
|
| Why add "proven" before science?
|
| Nobody expects the USDA to handle such problems with "unproven
| science", for whatever it could be.
|
| For decades they've made the sterilized flies by exposing them to
| gamma radiation that damages their reproductive system and it's
| been effective.
|
| Am I getting doubtful of every announcement from this
| administration or are they trying to tackle conspiracy theories
| from the start?
| jeff_lee wrote:
| Feels like we had the cure in our hands and just let the disease
| walk back in.
| db48x wrote:
| The "cure" is an unceasing war. Then COVID hit and the war
| ceased for a few months.
| Eextra953 wrote:
| So with pests and viruses there is no real eradication? Do
| they really require an unceasing war to reign them in? I have
| no knowledge of this field - just curious.
| hotep99 wrote:
| Screwworms could probably be eradicated in theory but it
| would require spreading the sterile fly program to the
| entirety of the Americas which isn't going to happen. There
| would always be a pocket somewhere in the Amazon of fertile
| flies so it isn't really viable. The point of stopping them
| at the Darien Gap was that there was a geographically small
| area where their spread could be halted from entering
| Central and North America and re-establishing themselves.
| db48x wrote:
| It depends on the pest. Some of them are easier to
| eliminate than others. With screwworm flies the only
| offense we have is to raise them by the billions, sterilize
| them with radiation, chill them down, and then drop them
| out of airplanes. Fertile females end up mating with
| sterile males and then cannot lay any eggs before they die.
| Each generation then becomes radically smaller than the
| previous. Since their lifecycle is only a few weeks long
| this eliminates them in a few months. They were able to
| successfully eradicate the screwworm fly from North and
| Central America, but a combination of expense and
| diplomatic entanglements prevented them from continuing
| south past Panama. There have been outbreaks before, most
| notably in Egypt (or maybe just northern Africa, I forget)
| a few decades ago.
|
| We have different responses to other pests. For example,
| Florida maintains a mosquito control program that sprays
| vast swathes of the state with insecticide from both the
| ground and the air every 7 days. I imagine that other
| southern states do as well.
| thfuran wrote:
| Rinderpest (a cattle disease) and Smallpox are the only two
| diseases ever successfully eradicated. The smallpox vaccine
| was the first vaccine ever invented, and it took until
| 1980, about 180 years later, to eradicate the disease
| entirely. It pretty much is an unceasing war, though Guinea
| worm and polio are also relatively close to being
| eradicated. But if you stop fighting them, they'll just
| spread again.
| thrown-0825 wrote:
| I assumed this was a computer virus affecting an exchange based
| on it being at the top of HN.
| dlisboa wrote:
| With this and the tariffs on Brazil the US consumer is going to
| feel it.
| Pxtl wrote:
| This was literally one of the first North American disasters I
| saw predicted as falling out of the Doge cuts.
| renewiltord wrote:
| The barrier failure happened last year due to covid related
| supply chain issues that eventually reached the end of the
| bullwhip and was announced then.
| Eextra953 wrote:
| Any other predictions you saw/see coming? I feel like it would
| be useful to collect all of the predictions from people with
| domain knowledge and then build a website to track them all.
| Whether or not they happen, who knows, but being able to track
| them should be a big help in building a narrative of what is
| really happening vs media narratives that are hyper localized
| in time and often do a terrible job of explaining the long
| history of events.
| delfinom wrote:
| This predates the DOGE cuts. During COVID and afterwards
| smuggling of cattle across from South America into Central
| America basically went full tilt and is considered the reason
| why the program collapsed.
|
| https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/science-and-diseas...
| Bender wrote:
| Whether your meat comes form South America or the US or the EU,
| always wear gloves when handling raw meats and don't touch your
| face. There are thousands of types of dangerous larvae that can
| infect via the eyes _rubbing the eyes_ or the nose _picking ones
| nose_ when handling raw meats and vegetables. Cutting meat slices
| thinner and cooking them well kills larvae. Marinating meats with
| something that contains acetic acid also helps. Stomach acid
| takes care of the rest.
|
| Beware of the fear porn spreading around this issue. I have
| already seen articles posted showing what happens when rubbing
| ones eyes or picking ones nose after handling raw food and of
| course it is horrific but screw worms are just one of many real
| risks. Food handlers in first world countries are taught not to
| touch their faces and to wear gloves among many other safety
| practices with raw meats and vegetables. Everyone _both
| vegetarian and carnivore_ unknowingly eat many types of larvae,
| bacteria, mold, fungus and insects all the time.
|
| I know I will get beat up for going against the agenda but I am
| that guy.
| Aurornis wrote:
| > I know I will get beat up for going against the agenda but I
| am that guy.
|
| Food safety with raw meets isn't really going against the
| agenda.
| renewiltord wrote:
| What's with everyone saying they know some secret that
| everyone else is trying to suppress?
|
| Is it just that we all spend time in our bubble and take that
| to other groups?
|
| I don't even know what agenda he's going against by saying
| one should be careful around raw meat. Who's on the other
| side of this?
| sejje wrote:
| He's so effectively standing alone that nobody dare stand
| against him.
| f1shy wrote:
| I have had lots of discussions with people who insist in
| eating all raw. I have been in a restaurant where a
| teenager ordered a raw beef right beaid us. Made me sick
| just of seeing, feeling the raw meat smell, and hearing the
| chewing. I have seen enough "chefs" handling raw meat in
| tv, putting it literally seconds in heat, and basically
| eating raw. There is no agenda, but I do see a trend.
| wahnfrieden wrote:
| The shock of it is gamed for TikTok and Reels virality
| 1718627440 wrote:
| I thought not eating raw meat was more of an US thing,
| here in Europe/Germany there are some dishes that
| consists of raw meat, and that doesn't mean heated for
| seconds. Guess that's why we also have stricter hygiene
| rules.
| belter wrote:
| The french steak tartare is very common in France, in
| many corporate canteen.
| orwin wrote:
| 'tartare' you see in corporate canteen (and a lot of
| restaurants sadly) are from Metro, and are absolutely
| safe: after being cut, it's flash-freezed in its can, and
| the can is only opened seconds before the meat is
| prepared, minutes before being served.
|
| They're not really good, but they're safe.
| f1shy wrote:
| >> always wear gloves when handling raw meats and don't touch
| your face.
|
| Ecoli alone should be enough to be careful with handling raw
| meats (of any animal) and of course the worms and other things.
| Specially if you have ANY wounds, small as they are, if e.g.
| lemon juice burns, is an open wound.
|
| Also meat should be cooked properly. Lately seems to be kind of
| hype, almost a competition, who eats the rawer meat. 5 star
| chefs are pushing more and more red, even I have seen "chefs"
| simply literally laying meat for 5 seconds. The texture is
| gummy, taste horrible, and just dangerous.
| 1718627440 wrote:
| That won't help your costumers that eat the raw meat you
| prepared, you still need to have proper hygiene in the complete
| food chain.
| erredois wrote:
| Coming from a family that has cattle and dairy cows in south
| eastern Brazil, where screwworm is endemic, I was surprised when
| I listened to a podcast about screwworm, and some of the
| descriptions about how huge the problem was in the US. After some
| research it appears it affects more climates that are always hot
| and humid, and big operations where the animals are not being
| checked frequently. Also the handling at the 60s was probably
| much worse than modern techniques for avoiding animals being hurt
| and treating when they are infected.
| Aurornis wrote:
| > I was surprised when I listened to a podcast about screwworm,
| and some of the descriptions about how huge the problem was in
| the US.
|
| It's not a huge problem in the US. We eradicated screwworm in
| the 60s.
|
| We are trying very hard to keep it out. The US normally works
| very hard to monitor and prevent these situations in trade
| partners.
|
| https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/flesh-eating-scre...
| nabla9 wrote:
| 'Man-eating' screw worm turns hospital into horror show
| https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/science-and-diseas...
|
| Mexican Livestock halted while US is in trade war with Brazil (21
| percent of all US beef imports).
| ryanmerket wrote:
| July 9th? Wrong date or is this a month old?
| xipho wrote:
| Very hard to escape biology unless you invest in understanding
| it. Ticks, mosquito-born diseases, agricultural pests, they don't
| care about AI, politics, or space-races or geo political
| boundaries. We, on the other hand, require life to go on, it's
| asynchronous.
|
| This is why natural history collections, and taxonomists are
| going to be more critical than ever, at some point we'll need to
| re-invest in knowing what's out there, and, more importantly how
| and why it's different than what we knew before. Biodiversity is
| vast, this isn't easy.
|
| Companies that anticipate this (we know we're going to get a
| billion requests for "what's this fly", how can we monitize
| this?), and also actully understand that species are literally
| invaluable lab experiments running millions of years, are bound
| to benefit. In a not so distance Scifi future will we see big
| pharma, defense, etc. protecting areas and their environments
| because they finally grok this?
| zwnow wrote:
| I highly doubt big pharma will intervene. Humans only care
| about the foreseeable future. Our interest and actions
| regarding climate change shows that openly to each and everyone
| of us.
| xipho wrote:
| Big pharma will intervene when they realize that life is one
| big chemistry experiment, and it's running longer than any
| lab has. AI to predict, nature to produce, then you need to
| figure out how nature produced. Understanding the pathways in
| nature -> quicker time to product.
| paulcole wrote:
| In what is it "asynchronous"?
| bspammer wrote:
| I'm sure they meant asymmetrical
| xipho wrote:
| Child comment is probably right, "asymmetrical" was likely
| going through my mind, or some chimera of both. I mean to say
| that whatever humans do, their actions ("requests"), don't
| get a response from "nature" immediately, the "response" is
| unpredictable, particularly as to when it will come back. If
| we get a break down SS, we get no response. Request(s) ->
| nature impacted -> some time passes -> response comes back,
| but not all nice and linear, nor always what we expected.
| "Promises" only coming with deep understanding.
| guhcampos wrote:
| I think mr Trump will have to seriously rethink the 50% tariff he
| put on our (Brazilian) meat imports then. Interesting.
| sparrish wrote:
| Yeah, cause you guys don't have screw worms in Brazil? It's
| likely the screw worms in Mexico now came from Brazil.
| chris_wot wrote:
| America put a large tariff on Australian beef. We don't have
| this.
|
| Guess you all like eating expensive beef.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2025-08-09 23:01 UTC)