this post was submitted on 01 Jun 2026
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[–] Folstar@lemmus.org 5 points 22 hours ago* (last edited 22 hours ago)

People think the sunbelt population boom was all about AC becoming widely available. Yes, AC played a huge role. Also, not having extremely painful fly larva burrow into any open wound, mucus membrane. Believe it or not, that was something of a turn off for people prior to the eradication campaign of the 50s. Time to start wearing long sleeves and layers again.

But hey, at least we saved a few million dollars by not adequately funding the facilities that kept screwworms south of the Darien Gap. It should only cost a few billion to repeat the eradication campaign this time around.

Do You Want To Know More? https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/8e4617f337af41b1a083ab17deb95e2a

[–] billwashere@lemmy.world 4 points 22 hours ago
[–] thedeadwalking4242@lemmy.world 6 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I'm all for humanity waging a bio war against all human parasites that if decimated would have no biological impact.

[–] Areldyb@lemmy.world 6 points 1 day ago

If we ever want to gene drive these fuckers out of existence, cutting science funding was probably a bad call.

[–] Quexotic@infosec.pub 4 points 1 day ago (1 children)

5 earthquakes in the past 7 days, a meteor OVER a volcano, pestilence...

We're cooked.

[–] Tiral@lemmy.world 0 points 23 hours ago (1 children)

Meh. The human race is a plague in general.

[–] Quexotic@infosec.pub 1 points 16 hours ago

It definitely does seem to be that way.

[–] BeMoreCareful@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

This is the one that kills cattle?

[–] TubularTittyFrog@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

yes, and infect pets and can infect people, though that's not it's primary target.

it's fucking awful. and it's easily preventable. but we simply stopped doing the hard work of prevention because of cost-cutting.

[–] BeMoreCareful@lemmy.world 2 points 22 hours ago

At least we have all the ivermectin?

[–] WanderWisley@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago

Screwworm all out attack!

[–] Taleya@aussie.zone 2 points 1 day ago

They're coming for the rest of you, Kennedy!

[–] leadore@lemmy.world 47 points 2 days ago (2 children)

RFK Jr. has immediately flown to the area to play with, and possibly eat them.

[–] SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca 4 points 1 day ago

Praise Shai Hulud!

[–] Cort@lemmy.world 9 points 2 days ago

Do you think he'll bring his grandkids, like as a snack for the screw worms?

[–] Pollo_Jack@lemmy.world 56 points 2 days ago (3 children)

Conservative policy cut funding to keeping these away. Conservatives should be seen not heard when it comes to any policy.

[–] grue@lemmy.world 22 points 2 days ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

IIRC, they were being stopped at the choke point in Central America. Now that they're past it, they'll be almost impossible to contain even if funding were restored.

Just one of many cases where the damage being done is permanent.

[–] Pollo_Jack@lemmy.world 6 points 1 day ago

It can be stopped again but god damn will it not be cheap.

[–] benjirenji@slrpnk.net 3 points 1 day ago

The public health boomerang

[–] wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyz 8 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Yeah, Elon said "Millions of dollars for breeding radioactive flies?!? What kind of dumb science stuff is this‽ Fraud, waste, and abuse!"

[–] Folstar@lemmus.org 1 points 21 hours ago* (last edited 21 hours ago)

As likely as that is, it's important to note that was step 3 in the screwworm failure.

  1. Covid supply chain issues raised alarms that hey, that little lab we have in Panama protecting ~100M people and the livestock industries of several nations might need some emergency support, funding. The Trump Administration did not raise to the challenge. [note: the cause of the Darian Gap failure is "contested" because some people think it just, you know, happened or something, man]

  2. The Biden Administration's initial position, as is the Democrat way, was to assume the status quo their predecessors strived to create was good enough. When it became obvious this was not the case they sprung into forming a committee to create a plan to monitor the situation and collaborate with foreign entities who were completely incapable of handling this issue, since institutional knowledge of a problem solved 40 years ago was gone. Apparently process documentation is a problem in all human endeavors. To their credit, when screwworms hit Mexico the administration did halt livestock border crossings and quadruple the Panama facility's output.

  3. Trump takes over, does fuckall for half a year, then USDA announces they'll build a $750M screwworm facility in Texas. Experts note this facility is about 3,000 km from the Darian Gap, but hey, can't be sending American money to some shithole amirite? Luckily the facility will be online in late 2027 barring certain delays, so as long as the screwworm's northern spread slows by orders of magnitude for no reason we'll be covered.

[–] CharlesDarwin@lemmy.world 6 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Fraud, waste, and abuse

I got so very sick of seeing those assholes all repeating that line in the first part of 2025. It sounded like they all had an alien parasite that crawled into their heads.

Especially that grinning idiot of a chipmunk, Kevin Hassett.

What I find so annoying is that none of these asshats seemed to get put on the spot to have to define just what that even means. It's like they just rode on the myth of the $600 hammer "government bad" stuff and it was/is all so very stupid....

[–] wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyz 2 points 1 day ago

Anything that helps the poor: "fraud, waste, and abuse!"

Anything that transfers wealth from taxpayers to the rich (especially Elon): "NBD, that's just business"

Apparently conflict of interest means nothing anymore. Or collusion, embezzlement, or emoluments...

[–] Zedstrian@sopuli.xyz 60 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (2 children)

RFK Jr. should keep them to himself.

[–] Tylerdurdon@lemmy.world 8 points 2 days ago (1 children)

It's impressive that many of us immediately went there. He's made a name for himself.

[–] yakko@feddit.uk 2 points 1 day ago

He's certainly a striking character. Dude sounds like a wheelbarrow of rocks falling down a hill.

[–] Tollana1234567@lemmy.today 2 points 2 days ago (1 children)

his is braineating worms. hence the raccoon fetish.

[–] SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca 2 points 1 day ago

Just the peen Robert, just the peen.

[–] AdolfSchmitler@lemmy.world 4 points 1 day ago
[–] lemmyng@lemmy.world 24 points 2 days ago (5 children)

If you haven't seen the image of what these things can do to a deer, I'd highly advise against looking for the pic unless you have a strong stomach.

[–] jaycifer@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago

Honestly not as bad as I thought it would look.

[–] ChanchoManco@lemmy.zip 4 points 1 day ago

I have seen the damage they do to cows and horses in real life and it's nightmarish. My father got one in his arm once, this was before I was born but luckily he got it out before it did much harm.

[–] kibblebits@quokk.au 14 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I took that bait and can confirm you should not look up the images. I need to lay down.

[–] RumAndCreole@lemmy.world 11 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Pffft wimps.

Mother of God... what even... why did I do that!!!

[–] kibblebits@quokk.au 6 points 2 days ago

Right? I mean, I guess that’s pretty much where I saw 2026 going anyway. 😅

You warned me and I still did it.

Can we have covid back instead?

[–] Semi_Hemi_Demigod@lemmy.world 8 points 2 days ago

Their name is enough

To anyone confused as I was, they are talking about a location in Mexico roughly 31 miles away from the USA border, not 31 miles of border length.

[–] who@feddit.org 20 points 2 days ago (2 children)

The article talks about cattle, but these things infest humans, too.

[–] Klear@piefed.world 8 points 2 days ago

Oh hell Jimmy, I don't care for that notion one bit.

[–] xylol@leminal.space 4 points 2 days ago

But people can usually seek help, sucks for wild animals

[–] SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone 17 points 2 days ago (1 children)

My apocalypse bingo card is filling up fast.

[–] notacat@infosec.pub 22 points 2 days ago

Don’t worry, they’re dismantling all the monitoring agencies so these warnings will stop coming

[–] InvalidName2@lemmy.zip 2 points 1 day ago

I don't know about the southern border of Texas, but much of the Southern / South-Eastern USA is experiencing varying degrees of drought this spring with very little relief in sight. The last time things were this bad in my part of the country was about 20 - 25 years ago.

I wonder how that will play into the spread of these parasites. Will they spread more quickly due to sicker/weaker wild populations of host animals spreading out trying to find ever more scarce food and water resources?

It's not quite the same thing, but that prior major drought I mentioned from a couple decades ago is widely discussed as having been the source event for the spread of fire ants to my area. A lot of our agricultural products like animal feeds are grown, produced, and consumed locally. However, in drought years, things like hay have to be transported in from other parts of the country and it's believed that the fire ants hitched a ride from out of state that way.

[–] Chozo@fedia.io 8 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Haven't they already been in the US for a while now? I recall hearing about an infestation in Texas some time ago.

[–] BloodMuffin@lemmy.ca 15 points 2 days ago (2 children)

they used to be rampant in the southern States. a huge multinational effort pushed them back down south.

https://youtu.be/zxq60I5RSW8

[–] meco03211@lemmy.world 12 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Was that something cut by doge?

[–] it_wasnt_arson@awful.systems 9 points 2 days ago

iirc, they fell behind during COVID, the increased funding and facility expansions needed to actively push them back down into the chokepoint never got approved, and the trump administration would rather spend 10x more moving all the infrastructure up to the US-Mexico border than do anything that would help other countries "for free" (even though they already chip in).

[–] Krusty@quokk.au 7 points 2 days ago

More or less.

[–] bss03@infosec.pub 4 points 2 days ago

1/2 as Interesting also did a good one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Olj8arvfYj4

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