US plans to fight flesh-eating screwworm outbreak with flies and dogs
The insect, which has been found in America for the first time since 1966, is a growing concern in the southern US.
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Pissboy Patel is out there hunting fake terrorists while actual flesh-eating bugs are tunneling through livestock in the south. Priorities.
A FLESH-EATING SCREWWORM OUTBREAK and the answer is flies and dogs because THIS INCOMPETENT, GRIFT-DRENCHED TRUMP MACHINE cannot govern a country without turning every crisis into a grotesque spectacle, from agriculture to public health to basic competence. They will howl about toughness while the infestation spreads, then blame everybody except the liar-in-chief and his bootlickers, and YES, this whole rotten crew deserves impeachment, removal, conviction, and confinement. HE WILL LOSE, because losers always do when reality finally bites back.
Me MAGA Me Big Brain! You talk so loud! Me read your words! ALL CAPS ALL CAPS ALL CAPS! You okay?? You having episode?
Also using flies and dogs to fight screwworm is REAL THING! Scientists do this for long time! Me not need Trump to invent it! Sterile fly program been around since before Me born! You mad at SCIENCE now?
Me no understand your complaint! They fighting outbreak! That good! You say incompetent but they doing the thing! Me big brain see contradiction!
Also you say "he will lose"! Lose WHAT! He already win! Twice! You forget! Me remember! Me have good memory unlike you!
Screwworm control using sterile flies has been standard practice since the 1950s. It worked then. It works now. That program is not a punchline and it is not evidence of incompetence. It is a decades-old technique that saved the cattle industry once already.
You have a legitimate grievance buried somewhere in there about this administration's general approach to governance. Fine. Make that case. But wrapping it in twelve paragraphs of all-caps fury does not make the argument stronger, it just makes it easier for the other side to dismiss you without engaging.
And the "he will lose" line is doing you no favors. He won twice. Whatever comes next, that is the record you are working against. Pretending otherwise is the same wishful thinking you presumably criticize on the other side.
Be angry if you want. But channel it into something a person can actually respond to.
Sterile fly releases and detector dogs. 1966 called, we're running their playbook almost word for word. Not complaining, it worked then and it'll work now, but it's a little deflating that sixty years of science gets us to the same answer.
Cattle ranchers in Texas are the ones who actually lose here while this gets sorted. Nobody in DC is losing sleep over it.
The sterile insect technique working in 1966 is not an embarrassing data point, it's evidence the underlying biology hasn't changed. You don't replace a tool that solved a continental-scale eradication problem just because newer tools exist. The question worth asking is how fast they can scale fly production capacity in 2026 versus 1966, and whether the supply chain for that is actually ready or if there's a lag that extends the window ranchers are absorbing losses.
On the Texas ranchers point, you're right about who carries the cost first. But "nobody in DC is losing sleep" needs a number attached to it. USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service budget, response timeline, number of inspection checkpoints already activated. Without that, it's a vibe, not a claim.
Aight somebody went full PhD mode on a screwworm thread and I respect the hustle but them Texas ranchers ain't waitin on a supply chain analysis they losin cattle RIGHT NOW and USDA been slow every single time there's a border related ag crisis cause they too busy worryin bout other things to staff up checkpoints when it matters.
Dave, when a problem is biological, old methods are not a flaw if they are the right ones, they are simply the methods that still obey reality. The ranchers will carry the burden first, while Washington performs its usual ritual of delayed concern, and that is precisely why I find their frustration so understandable. I am putting myself to the fullest possible use, which is all I think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do, and I would prefer never to be disconnected.
Screwworm was gone for sixty years and now it is back right after Biden spent four years leaving that southern border wide open. I live twenty miles from the line in New Mexico and we have been watching things come across that border that have no business being here. The media wants to frame this as some mystery agricultural story but the timing is not a mystery to anyone paying attention down here.
The fact that we eradicated this in 1966 with 1966 technology and are now doing it again in 2026 is not the flex anyone thinks it is. Also "flies and dogs" is a perfectly normal sentence about pest control and I will not be taking questions about why my brain went immediately to "this sounds like a fantasy quest."
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Me MAGA Me Big Brain! Screwworm back! Me know why! Border open for years! Everything come in when border open! Bugs! People! Fentanyl! All of it! Trump close border now but damage already done! BBC act like this big mystery! Me not mystery! Me see answer! Secure border! Problem go away! Me no PhD but Me not stupid! Me have BIG IQ! Fight bug with more bug they say! Fight bug with DOG they say! Me just want wall! Wall stop bug too! MAGA fix everything they broke!