The Fall and Rise of Screwworm(www.construction-physics.com)
71 pointsby crescit_eundo5 hours ago11 comments
  • Planktonne28 minutes ago
    > (Some anti-screwworm efforts may have been hindered by DOGE, which cut APHIS staff, screwworm monitoring programs, and may have delayed funding for the Mexico facility, but it’s hard to be confident about this, and the administration has unsurprisingly rejected these claims.)

    For an article that is so detailed in other areas, this feels like a very short dismissal of a topic that--regardless of direction--deserves more focus.

  • needSomeCoffeean hour ago
    Thanks to the author. That was a great read imho. Loved the early parts about the guys who -- despite the ridicule and lack of resources -- achieved eradication. Again, great read.
  • goda903 hours ago
    I wonder if anyone ever did the math on whether trying to maintain a barrier at the Darian Gap with occasional failures was really a better financial choice than teaming up with South American countries to drive screwworms to extinction.
    • AlotOfReading3 hours ago
      Yes, they did because various countries have talked to the US about expanding it. The problem is that South America is an enormous place, whereas Panama is a narrow isthmus. It could have been done with some amount of money, but that opportunity ended in 2010 at the latest.
      • moffkalast35 minutes ago
        In the end though, history will see it as a half measure where they really shouldn't have half assed it. It only took one moron to defund the project and all of it will come streaming back.
      • cogman102 hours ago
        [deleted for being misinformation]
        • aeontech2 hours ago
          Hmm, that seems to contradict the article directly - insecticides were used to try to battle screwworm initially and were not really effective - the solution was using sterile male flies to stop reproduction - which would work in South America just as well as it did in North (with sufficient scale)
    • consensus122 minutes ago
      I think the issue is that you would have to push the barrier across the entire South American continent, which is twice the distance of the US-Mexico border and also crosses the Amazon where there is basically no infrastructure.
  • comrade12343 hours ago
    Out of curiosity I looked up the cost to south American beef producers like Argentina/brazil. The extra constant animal inspections costs ~$10 per cattle up until slaughter I think. Not a huge cost but a pain nonetheless.
    • boelboel3 hours ago
      $10 in Brazil/Argentine would be significantly more in the US because of labour costs I assume. Is there any training needed for the inspections/enough people who could do it on a short notice in the US? Could drive up the price even more.

      Not that I believe it'll drive up the price that much but I wouldn't be surprised if it ends up being 50-70 USD per in the US.

    • dcrazy3 hours ago
      Surely the bigger issue is not the inspections, but the loss of infected livestock?
      • marcosdumayan hour ago
        It's not some contagious disease that will spread to every animal. One can just treat the infected cattle until they get healthy again.
  • 2 hours ago
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  • taco_emojian hour ago
    Well that's nightmare fuel D:
  • CodingJeebus2 hours ago
    > Overall, the screwworm program seems like a classic case of something becoming a victim of its own success: a problem got solved so thoroughly that we forget how big of a problem it was, and we gradually undermine the conditions that made the solution possible.

    Chesterson's Fence strikes again. It's so easy to wax poetic about how ineffective government spending always is and should be cut to the bone that we don't stop to recognize that preventative programs like this save us from billions in economic losses.

    • JKCalhoun27 minutes ago
      "Some anti-screwworm efforts may have been hindered by DOGE, which cut APHIS staff, screwworm monitoring programs, and may have delayed funding for the Mexico facility…"

      Yep.

    • consensus119 minutes ago
      The article is very clear that the issue arose in 2021 and the main causes are increased migration / cattle smuggling across the Darien Gap and over zealous COVID lockdowns. But sure, cherry pick that quote because you want to blame something that happened 4 years after the problem started.
  • whalesalad3 hours ago
    > Eventually capable of producing more than 200 million screwworm flies a week, the Mission factory was a grotesque marvel of insect-producing efficiency. Operating 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, it was, in essence, a 76,000-square-foot artificial wound. Trays full of meat, blood, and water, each one heated to the exact right temperature to stimulate screwworm growth, moved through the facility on a monorail system timed to the lifecycle of the screwworm.

    Imagine working at the screwworm factory.

    • alexpotato3 hours ago
      I was born with no sense of smell [0] and I always wondered if I could combine that with my tech skills to be CTO at a place like the screwworm factory or possibly Waste Management.

      0 - https://x.com/alexpotato/status/1559865770515087360?s=20

      • delichon2 hours ago
        > I applied this principle and married someone with a great sense of smell

        May you and your smelling nose wife live happily ever after.

      • trashfacean hour ago
        I'm sure the fly production methodology has improved over the years, but based on what TFA describes, I'm not sure lacking smell would save you from disgust. I think even a Buddhist would be hard-pressed to find compassion for this particular fly species.
    • bee_rider3 hours ago
      I guess you’d probably have taken some solace in the fact that you didn’t have to live at the screwworm factory. Past tense, unfortunately, since the worms are setting up their own factories all over.
  • tke248an hour ago
    [flagged]
  • MagicMoonlight2 hours ago
    [dead]
  • qsxfthnkp23223 hours ago
    [flagged]
    • ourmandave2 hours ago
      Eggs were just plan old boring corruption with price fixing in 2004-2008. And then again in 2022-2025.

      Big Eggs made $1.2B and the fine is $3.3M and donating 53M eggs.

      Yeah, that'll stop 'em from doing it again.

    • AnimalMuppet2 hours ago
      If you think that screwworm is just an excuse to raise prices, I think that you badly misunderstand the situation.