Trust in science is so low in the US that this was bound to happen. The author's conclusion nails it:
But institutional failures like this aren’t just the aggregate failure of a number of irresponsible people, they are a failure of a cultural attitude that doesn’t demand excellence from everyone in order to get the job done.
I'll add though that when crisis happens the entity 'doing something about it' suddenly looks amazing, even if they were the cause. That means that it is a winning political strategy to create a lot of crisis so you can solve a few of them and look like a hero.
tines 5 minutes ago [-]
A lesson from The Incredibles which we didn’t collectively learn.
readthenotes1 35 minutes ago [-]
Is this like fouci funding gain of function research and then being in charge of managing results (including but not limited to suppressing information about his role in it)?
madaxe_again 3 minutes ago [-]
So close!! That is a shape
squibonpig 27 minutes ago [-]
Yall ain't sending your best huh
jmward01 34 minutes ago [-]
no
somelamer567 17 minutes ago [-]
Spotted the intellectual.
devin 29 minutes ago [-]
Can't even spell the name right? Come on, man.
FrustratedMonky 12 minutes ago [-]
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.
LarsDu88 8 minutes ago [-]
When I was doing my PhD in bio one of my colleagues developed something called CRISPR gene drive, which had the potential of exterminating species wholesale. There was talk of using it to wipe out mosquito populations.
The riskiness of it was quite high though. Wonder if people will consider reviving it in this case.
Havoc 18 hours ago [-]
Chances of current US gov mounting a coordinated scientific campaign to get on top of this seem vanishingly small to me. They’re busy defunding and dismantling any gov operation that smells like science
kevin_thibedeau 45 minutes ago [-]
They're building a new breeding facility in the US. They can't pull a Don't Look Up on this one because of the powerful business interests they need to placate.
inigyou 1 hours ago [-]
I heard there was one keeping this under control. It involved transgenic flies, which sounds close to transgender. DOGE ended it. It was also pitched as "why are we studying the mating habits of flies?"
zdragnar 42 minutes ago [-]
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.
squibonpig 29 minutes ago [-]
Yeah we did have it solved for a long time. We had no screwworms at all in the country. That was a great solution that lasted decades. Why would having to do all the work of applying medication, paying for the medication, animals that you catch late dying of infection and paying for those animals, people occasionally getting screwworms, pets dying to screwworms, etc etc etc be better or cheaper?
Also they don't genetically modify flies they still just irradiate the larva.
magicalist 27 minutes ago [-]
> We already have medicines that treat the problem
We do have treatments of screwworm infestations, but it involves physically removing the larva and usually removing tissue as well as systemic treatments like antiparasitics. It's labor intensive and not cheap.
It also doesn't actually fix the _overall_ problem because screwworms will happily lay eggs in wild mammals too and so you will constantly be treating your livestock.
> We've had it solved for a long time
Yes, we solved it with mass releases of sterile flies over decades.
inigyou 31 minutes ago [-]
Is this what ivermectin actually treats? Everything comes full-circle.
bell-cot 53 minutes ago [-]
Just contemplate who is building major facilities in central and southern Texas, and the potential for poetic justice.
cyanydeez 7 hours ago [-]
If we all pass around the hat we can make a bet on Kalshi that they "WONT" do this. Right? That's effective democracy!
tennfown 2 hours ago [-]
[dead]
Levitating 1 days ago [-]
The Atlantic has two[1][2] rather good articles on the topic.
Ordinarily, we wouldn't have issues, but seeing as the US is now a full-blown kakistocracy, being run into the ground by know-nothings and mental cases, I don't have much hope of seeing a competent response.
casey2 21 hours ago [-]
Apparently they feed larvae a warm slurry
atoav 14 hours ago [-]
Headline from March of last year:
Bird flu, screwworm monitoring among foreign aid programs killed by Trump
It's right there, linked in TFA. The press release provided by the GP is instead discussing funding for the "UN Food and Agriculture Organization", which is different. Apparently they also do some unspecified amount of work on the issue.
4 hours ago [-]
maeglin 8 hours ago [-]
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.
timr 4 hours ago [-]
> I'm not sure what your point is here.
My point is that the instinct to be partisan on this issue is inane, but also factually incorrect.
> Yes, the screwworm problem predates the funding cut.
Great, so we're agreed that this is at least a bi-partisan problem.
> Surely that should prompt an increase or at least a maintenance of existing funding for monitoring programs though, certainly not a decrease.
Fortunately, it is. This was linked directly from TFA:
A problem happening eventually is expected. The point of a good program is a layered approach that admits no layer is perfect so you have backups that kick in to minimize the impact of problems. So the problem was emerging in 2022, not great but not a tragedy. Cutting monitoring means we reacted slower and our inability to play with our neighbors well means that we can't coordinate a response quickly or as effectively. Destroying our layered, nuanced policies has real consequences and this is one of them.
pstuart 21 minutes ago [-]
Pointing out legitimate failure of an administration is not partisan -- denying or deflecting that criticism is partisan. The current regime has slashed so many programs based on the flimsiest reasoning (including "my predecessor supported this so therefore I hate it").
I'm more than happy to acknowledge any failures by Dem leadership because I'm not a party member and even if I were I would not let that blind me to the reality of that failure.
sanktanglia 48 minutes ago [-]
Screw worms existing before Trump doesn't make it a bipartisan issue. Trump cut the funding, did Democrats do too? So then no only one party ignored and actively defunded it, making it exactly a partisan issue. Good job trying to cover for trump, it's extra pathetic here
4 hours ago [-]
mittensc 12 hours ago [-]
it is the admin responsibility to protect its citizens.
has it done anything to prevent/mitigate this? or the opposite?
silexia 5 hours ago [-]
Farmer here. We have had our access to medications for livestock severely curtailed over recent years. The screw work is already in Texas. This means there will be massive amounts of suffering we cannot help with.
If we had tariffs, this northward movement of herds would not happen. And American farmers who have to follow high minimum wage rules and strict environmental rules could compete.
mrngld 15 minutes ago [-]
It wasn't herds of cattle moving through the jungles of Central America that likely helped the screwworm breach the barrier we'd been maintaining for decades. It was mass human migration. Once they managed to move north any animal was a potential host, not just commercial critters.
And even then it probably could've been held at bay and fought back south, except Mexico in particular was extremely sensitive about any suggestion they might not have everything completely under control.
Even so, the US started contingency plans a while ago just in case, and construction of the new facility. The comments here are quick to try to take a jab at the government but short of nuking southern Mexico from sea to glowing sea once the screwworms breached the line, and that breach wasn't US territory, don't know how this was ever going to play out differently unless the locals at every step of the way stepped up.
snowwrestler 53 minutes ago [-]
Tariffs would not stop the screw worm, which lives half of its life as a winged fly.
paconbork 20 minutes ago [-]
A fly that naturally spreads one mile per day does not travel from Panama to Texas in four years.
undersuit 15 minutes ago [-]
Maybe it came by a faster method.
BobaFloutist 2 hours ago [-]
>We have had our access to medications for livestock severely curtailed over recent years.
Oh no, tell me it's not ivermectin...
undersuit 13 minutes ago [-]
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.
ifyoubuildit 18 minutes ago [-]
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.
GenerocUsername 58 minutes ago [-]
It is
readthenotes1 33 minutes ago [-]
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
pstuart 20 minutes ago [-]
> If we had tariffs, this northward movement of herds would not happen.
Please explain how that would work.
sanktanglia 47 minutes ago [-]
Ahh yes tariffs will solve this problem,how's it doing solving all those other problems?
Rendered at 18:17:47 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time) with Vercel.
But institutional failures like this aren’t just the aggregate failure of a number of irresponsible people, they are a failure of a cultural attitude that doesn’t demand excellence from everyone in order to get the job done.
I'll add though that when crisis happens the entity 'doing something about it' suddenly looks amazing, even if they were the cause. That means that it is a winning political strategy to create a lot of crisis so you can solve a few of them and look like a hero.
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.
The riskiness of it was quite high though. Wonder if people will consider reviving it in this case.
See sibling threads.
Also they don't genetically modify flies they still just irradiate the larva.
We do have treatments of screwworm infestations, but it involves physically removing the larva and usually removing tissue as well as systemic treatments like antiparasitics. It's labor intensive and not cheap.
It also doesn't actually fix the _overall_ problem because screwworms will happily lay eggs in wild mammals too and so you will constantly be treating your livestock.
> We've had it solved for a long time
Yes, we solved it with mass releases of sterile flies over decades.
[1]: https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2020/05/flesh-ea...
[2]: https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2025/05/screwwor...
Bird flu, screwworm monitoring among foreign aid programs killed by Trump
See: https://www.agri-pulse.com/articles/22636-bird-flu-screwworm...
Elect stupid leaders, get stupid consequences.
https://www.usda.gov/sites/default/files/documents/nws-visit...
It's right there, linked in TFA. The press release provided by the GP is instead discussing funding for the "UN Food and Agriculture Organization", which is different. Apparently they also do some unspecified amount of work on the issue.
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.
My point is that the instinct to be partisan on this issue is inane, but also factually incorrect.
> Yes, the screwworm problem predates the funding cut.
Great, so we're agreed that this is at least a bi-partisan problem.
> Surely that should prompt an increase or at least a maintenance of existing funding for monitoring programs though, certainly not a decrease.
Fortunately, it is. This was linked directly from TFA:
https://www.usda.gov/sites/default/files/documents/nws-visit...
I'm more than happy to acknowledge any failures by Dem leadership because I'm not a party member and even if I were I would not let that blind me to the reality of that failure.
has it done anything to prevent/mitigate this? or the opposite?
If we had tariffs, this northward movement of herds would not happen. And American farmers who have to follow high minimum wage rules and strict environmental rules could compete.
And even then it probably could've been held at bay and fought back south, except Mexico in particular was extremely sensitive about any suggestion they might not have everything completely under control.
Even so, the US started contingency plans a while ago just in case, and construction of the new facility. The comments here are quick to try to take a jab at the government but short of nuking southern Mexico from sea to glowing sea once the screwworms breached the line, and that breach wasn't US territory, don't know how this was ever going to play out differently unless the locals at every step of the way stepped up.
Oh no, tell me it's not ivermectin...
Please explain how that would work.