Oh good, screwworms are back (2025)

Mistaking the initiation of something as the cause of something is a common mistake. A spark starting a fire in a bin of oily rags is technically the 'cause' but that thinking is clearly short sighted. In reality it was the bad practices that created the environment that was the true culprit. This is an example of the same. I suspect there are constant incursions in and near panama but a layered approach of constant study, monitoring, consistent prevention techniques, etc are what stop a surge in 'unchecked northward migration' from something that happens once or twice and is contained and corrected into something that happens constantly and isn't figured out until this has spread and established itself over thousands of miles. So, yes, the spark was 'northward migration' but the 'unchecked' was because we gave up in being good at this job. We de-funded monitoring and study. We put in place political leaders and not technical experts all because 'expert' opinions aren't important. That is what created the 'unchecked' and why we are here now.

The US far-right is famous for (at least) two things:

1. Mistrust in science, and

2. A habit of hastily strangling government watchdog agencies.

#1 has put all such public-safety programs on the chopping block. #2 is the fatal stroke of the axe.

Yall ain't sending your best huh

no

Spotted the intellectual.

Can't even spell the name right? Come on, man.

Was it ever really suppressed, if everyone knew about it? Because it was public information. No conspiracy.

The Right: "Nobody is talking about subject X, where is free speech". -> meanwhile -> "Everyone is talking about subject X", because you always had free speech. It was just a McGuffin to rile up the base and take control so you can suppress others.

So close!! That is a shape

> I heard there was one keeping this under control. It involved transgenic flies, which sounds close to transgender. DOGE ended it.

No.

First, the problem here predates DOGE by an entire presidential administration or more. If you had read the article, you’d know that the northward migration of flies started at least in 2020.

Second, the thing you’re misremembering has no relation to this program. It was funding for transgenic animals in a completely different area of research.

You are repeating hearsay that sounds like it should be the reason. It confirms your political priors while ironically making you feel smug about your scientific knowledge. I’m not a fan of the current administration, but seeing so many people here bend over backwards to blame this on their political enemies, without even a hint of intellectual curiosity is more depressing than anything the politicians have done. Your political team can be incompetent too — and probably is!

Just contemplate who is building major facilities in central and southern Texas, and the potential for poetic justice.

We already have medicines that treat the problem. We've had it solved for a long time. We didn't need to genetically modify flies to solve it then, and we don't now.

See sibling threads.

Unintended consequences of wiping out a species, evolved resistance to the gene drive modifications, accelerated unintended mutation, cross species jumps of the transgene.

I read the article and I am right about everything other than one not very significant detail. I am probably right about that too.

It is not a red herring that Trump allowed cattle imports from mexico when it was widely known that the screw worm was in mexico. It was a very serious lapse in safety and disease prevention.

Furthermore, DOGE did cut federal funding for programs for monitoring and curtailment of the screw worm in Central America in February 2025, and your own links show that. For example your link [2] says the above sentence almost verbatim. The FAO issue is not unrelated to the to the COPEG issue. The FAO also funded programs for detection and curtailment of the screw worm in central america just like COPEG. They were probably complimentary programs.

I could not find any link that COPEG funding was cut, but then again you showed no evidence that it was not cut. DOGE insisted on secrecy and was very vindictive, so a lot of DOGE cuts are not known and there is no definite public list of DOGE cuts. Furthermore, federal employees are scared. Any cuts to FAO programs would be made public because the FAO is an international organization and their employees are not at risk of being fired by Trump. But COPEG is an US organization and everyone in there will be scared to mention funding cuts to the media.

By the way, your statement that the Tump administration funded COPEG with 165 million in 2025 and a supplemental grant of 21 million is an outright falsehood and it is a falsehood proven by your own link [5]. Your own link [5] says that the 165 million funding came in 2024, not 2025 which would make it something done by the Biden administration. The supplemental 21 million funding came in 2025 but that was for fruit flies, not screw worm producing flies, so it did not go to COPEG.

I wonder, did you not read your own links, or did you know you were saying lies and hope that nobody else will read your links.

So in summary, DOGE did cut funding for screw worm detection and prevention in early 2025. Trump did allow Mexican cattle in the US in early 2025, even though it was known that the screw worm is in Mexico. It is not entirely clear whether DOGE cut funding for COPEG exactly or whether it only cut funding for other non-COPEG screw worm detection and prevention programs, but funding for screw worm detection and prevention was cut.

Oh great, then the next admin can blame this one when the problem is still around. Why solve a problem when you can just blame the other guys.

The argument is not that cutting funding caused the problem; the argument is that you have to use money to solve the problem.

I'm not sure what your point is here.

Yes, the screwworm problem predates the funding cut. Surely that should prompt an increase or at least a maintenance of existing funding for monitoring programs though, certainly not a decrease.

I think atoav is saying the /stupid consequence/ is the cut in funding itself, not the screwworm resurgence.

it is the admin responsibility to protect its citizens.

has it done anything to prevent/mitigate this? or the opposite?

Umm, yes? The funding was put in place because of the problem.

> It was mass human migration.

[citation needed]

Humans generally seek treatment when infected with some horrible parasite, which would result in said parasite getting killed before propagating. Even for incredibly poor people - AFAICS screwworm is rather painful. You're not gonna carry that.

A fly that naturally spreads one mile per day does not travel from Panama to Texas in four years.

Are you saying this because you only recognize the name from breathless covid propaganda? Or because you know ivermectin is pretty important in livestock management.

https://web.archive.org/web/20220202042136/https://www.fda.g... https://www.tga.gov.au/safety/safety-monitoring-and-informat...

Did some further reading, and it seems likely that the shortages were at least partially created by a boom in demand and crackdown on counterfeit ivermectin products. It's hard for me to see this as a partisan issue when everyone involved was just doing the best they could under fog-of-war conditions.

Ivermectin is readily given to livestock. Sheep even get immersed in a bath of it, you can buy sheep drench in the same farm supply store you'll find the apple flavored ivermectin paste for horses.

Ivermectin is a very potent drug against parasites. That's probably why it worked so well in third world countries to "treat" COVID-- It didn't affect the virus but it did reduce the immune burden on the body by getting rid of other stuff

It is