this post was submitted on 03 Jul 2025
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The move comes as the New World Screwworm fly larvae continues to cause chaos as it infiltrates the US beef industry, affecting wider wildlife, pets and, in rare cases, humans.

According to scientists, the new batches of male sterilised maggots will be dumped over the South American nation and the US state of Texas in a bid to eradicate the vicious variety of flesh-eating larvae.

The US Department of Agriculture is said the male flies, which measure slightly larger than the average housefly, will be sterilised with radiation before being released.

The strategy, set out by scientists, will force the female screwworms to breed with the newly sterilised males.

The flesh-eating variety of the screwworm maggots were eradicated from the US in 1966, but the creatures appear to me making a comeback.

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[–] [email protected] 62 points 3 days ago (1 children)

I'm surprised they're still doing it. I would have assumed the administration threw a fit about having Mexico pay for it instead.

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[–] [email protected] 151 points 3 days ago (3 children)

Mexico is not "South American." Most of it isn't even "Central American." The person who wrote this needs some geography lessons.

[–] [email protected] 68 points 3 days ago (6 children)

This article also makes this sound like a brand new endeavor, as if this hasn't been an ongoing project for 70 years now

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[–] [email protected] 15 points 3 days ago

I sent them a message to see if they'd update it. Just out of curiosity.

[–] [email protected] 27 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (2 children)

Screwworms are currently in negotiations with the Trump administration.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Of course they are. They have connections through RFK Jr's brain worm.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 3 days ago

New meaning to the term "insider".

[–] [email protected] 12 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

“Everyone’s saying screw worms are bad — WRONG! Screw worms are actually amazing for controlling pests. They SAVE livestock, save money, and keep our food supply strong. We should THANK screw worms, not attack them. Sad how people don’t know the facts! #ScrewwormSuccess #MAGA”

[–] [email protected] 27 points 3 days ago (1 children)
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[–] [email protected] 7 points 3 days ago

Life, uh, finds a way.

[–] [email protected] 57 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Mexico

South American nation

Wat

[–] [email protected] 14 points 3 days ago (2 children)

Don't you know, only USA is true north America. Canada is their "younger brother" 🤣

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

Believe it or not Canada is also South American. It's next to the country of Mattel. /s

[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 days ago (2 children)
[–] [email protected] 11 points 3 days ago

yeah. full of shit.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 days ago (3 children)

And Florida is the nipple?

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[–] [email protected] 156 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (9 children)

The article doesn't mention why this is suddenly an issue. They used to have a narrow choke point around Panama where they did this routinely to keep these things from ever getting into the US, but that was cut as part of the "government efficiency" fiasco, so now it's a widespread, growing, problem. Really the perfect example of why wildly cutting government spending without thought is not an 'efficient' approach to reducing spending.

There is also a picture of a screw-worm infected dog in the article, if you want to see what your republican sponsored future will be

[–] [email protected] 9 points 3 days ago (3 children)

but that was cut as part of the "government efficiency" fiasco

I hate Elon, Trump, DOGE, and MAGA as much as the next comrade, but I have seen no evidence this is the case. Where did you get this from?

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 3 days ago

"MAGAts for maggots"

[–] [email protected] 72 points 4 days ago (2 children)

It's worth noting that the current outbreak that's occurring north of Panama started prior to DOGE doing its bullshit. Apparently it began in 2022.

[–] [email protected] 31 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Worth noting that people still have no idea how much damage Trump and Republicans did the first go around.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 3 days ago (5 children)

I'm not saying they didn't do damage, but did they cut funding for this? There doesn't seem to be any evidence of that. There was an outbreak in Florida in 2016 before the 2022 outbreak

No concrete reason for the northward spread has been given, and Dr. Chancey said it is likely “multifactorial.” She noted that surveillance of NWS is limited in hard-to-reach areas across Central America, and livestock often are transported through unmonitored or insufficient checkpoints.

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