"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.
What assholes. :(
It doesn’t render the cattle or meat from the cattle useless. Obviously if affected cattle are untreated they will succumb to pest.
To clarify: it was never eradicated. It’s been actively managed and kept at bay. Now it’s punching through some holes.
There are always periodic outbreaks in Central America and Mexico. The current one started in 2023.
One common vector is illegal cattle trafficking.
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2020/05/flesh-ea...
Archive link: https://archive.ph/3sD9d
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.
And frankly, it's sad enough for Musk already - richest guy in the world, he could have actually done something politically on his own, and yet he still ends up being used as a useful idiot scapegoat by a con artist. "But Trump promised he cared about the debt!!1!1!"
In a critical time when monitoring and action were desperately needed, we eliminated the agency that'd do that.
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.
The cost to fight this back will definitely exponentially increase.
https://kbhbradio.com/usda-cuts-budget-staff-for-animal-dise...
Part of it was restored a couple of months later.
But it can and does infect humans and other animals
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...
"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...
It is mainstream economic and political opinion to regulate in some manner to reduce market consolidation since the 1940s with the Herfindahl–Hirschman Index.
Closest thing was a case where she blocked Sanderson Farms from being acquired but that was poultry.
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...
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...
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.
We can also live in a cave, better for the environment.
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.
Elsewhere in the thread people have posted explainer videos (of how the program works) from 2024 that seem entirely unaware of any such breach.
USDA approved an emergency funding of 165 million in 2024 for this issue
https://www.aphis.usda.gov/news/agency-announcements/usda-ap...
Government budgets are usually public. Do you want a secondary source, like a news article?
Everything I'm reading says it has been funded by USDA, and in fact funding has been significantly increased during 2025.
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.
> 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"
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.
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?
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.
Food safety with raw meets isn’t really going against the agenda.
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?
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.
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...
Mexican Livestock halted while US is in trade war with Brazil (21 percent of all US beef imports).
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?
Guess you all like eating expensive beef.
Glyptodon•3h ago