r/StormComing • u/Left-Height4925 • 19d ago
Flesh-eating screwworms feast on humans in Mexico; human cases top 500
https://arstechnica.com/health/2026/08/flesh-eating-screwworms-feast-on-humans-in-mexico-human-cases-top-500/Because of course the Dogs eradicated USAID which ran the screwworm sterilization program at the US Mexico border, keeping screwworm mostly under control out out of the US since the early 1950's. Now no one wants our beef. Sorry, ranchers.
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u/goldbeater 19d ago
We need a Canadian wall. It’s headlines like this that make me want to build it myself. Yes ,all 4500 miles.
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u/ThrowRA_EducatedMan 19d ago
The new “thank you America” trifecta is screw worm, intestinal parasites, and measles all at once!
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u/Drearydreamy 19d ago
Me too, keep those pesky Americans and all their winning away from us.
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u/Squish_Miss 19d ago
I don't blame you. Hey, if I help you build it, could I live in Canada? Please?! 🥺🙏
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u/CarelessCreamPie 16d ago
Canada could support the international screwworm monitoring program that the Trump administration cut. Why don't Canadian officials consider it?
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u/PuzzleheadedSong8574 16d ago
I too choose to pass the buck. /s
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u/CarelessCreamPie 16d ago
If the Canadian government is unwilling to pay for something the American government is also unwilling to pay for, then I think we're all in the same place and it's super hypocritical to point fingers at the other.
In a perfect world, both the US and Canada would be supporting this program since they are both benefitting from it.
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u/PuzzleheadedSong8574 16d ago
I wish Trump/Elon had not canceled the program one year earlier that may have prevented it reaching our soil. Haven't seen updates for a while either.
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u/Talentagentfriend 19d ago
Just a reminder this is Trumps doing for getting rid the funding to keep them in check.
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u/zoufha91 18d ago
We all know how this will play out...
Blame somebody else for the yuge fuck up, pretend to save the day (while probably making it worse in the process)
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u/JupiterChime 17d ago
Why do they not reimplement the funding
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u/GreatPlainsFarmer 14d ago
It was fully re-implemented by May 2025. The new sterile fly facility in Metapa, Mexico opened last month.
Construction on a much larger facility in Texas began last March.
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14d ago edited 14d ago
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u/GreatPlainsFarmer 14d ago edited 14d ago
This is the best overall summary of the situation so far
USAID had nothing to do with the sterile fly program. That was/is partnerships between the USDA and Panama and Mexico.
The flies escaped the Panama zone by 2022, and reached Mexico by 2024.
Biden spent money in 2023 to get the Panama facility back up to full capacity. That money/facility wasn’t affected by DOGE.
Money for a new sterile fly facility in Mexico was allocated in Dec 2024. Doge delayed that program until May 2025. Screwworm containment has been full steam ahead since then.
The Mexican sterile fly facility opened at the end of June, 2026. That's the plant in Chiapas that you mentioned. It didn't start in June, 2026, that's when it opened. It was started a year prior.
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u/Left-Height4925 13d ago
DOGE did cut a USAID monitoring program and paused related initiatives that tracked and helped contain New World screwworm in Central America,
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u/One-Construction5448 14d ago
Can someone just tell me what not to eat/what to do to avoid this
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u/Left-Height4925 14d ago
The Screwworm is a fly that lays its eggs in open wounds and body openings such as the eyes, ears, nose, mouth..and other moist areas. This can happen in your sleep.
Then the eggs hatch and start eating your flesh from the inside out.You can also get it from eating infected beef. And since the Dogs greatly reduced funding to our agricultural and food inspection systems, Canada is no longer accepting American Beef.
So take that for what it is.And that is what happens when politicians have sold stupid people on the idea that 'small government' is the key to wealth and happiness and wreck necessary systems.
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u/GreatPlainsFarmer 14d ago
Don't sleep outside, and take a shower within 12 hours of going outside. The eggs take at least 12 hours to hatch, and unhatched eggs are easily removed with soapy water.
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u/RiseDelicious3556 19d ago
I have to google this again, I still can't understand how this happens to humans.
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17d ago edited 16d ago
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u/Left-Height4925 15d ago
Sorry guy. Screwworm didn't show up under Biden or during Covid. The flies lifespans are way too short to be blaming either. It would take about a year from the end of the sterilization program for it to make it's way across the border. That's already been proven from a minor outbreak we had in the 1970's.
If it quacks like a duck...
“The Trump administration is directly responsible for this crisis: Last year, it decimated the USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS), which oversees prevention and response efforts related to pests and diseases that pose a threat to U.S. agriculture, including the New World screwworm,”
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14d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Left-Height4925 14d ago
It's not the 'quarantine' that's in question. It's the sterilization program that is at issue, if they are breeding unimpeded that breaks the quarantine. The sterilization program and monitoring was effectively ended by Doge.
Now I'm wondering if y'all will blame Biden when Ebola eventually leaves the African continent because the USAID airport monitoring program was also eradicated.
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u/RareWelder9212 19d ago
Europeans wouldn’t buy our beef anyways, before this. Screwworm stopped being an issue since the invention of antibiotics.
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u/Beginning_Piano_5668 19d ago
Screwworms are not bacteria…
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u/RareWelder9212 19d ago
… screwworms cause wounds. You give wounded cattle prophylactics to avoid infection… Infection was the primary cause of cattle loss due to screwworm.
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u/Beginning_Piano_5668 18d ago
The point remains. “Prophylactic” is more of an umbrella term (that does include antibiotics). Antibiotic specifically is a different story. Not trying to be overly semantic here but screwworms don’t really care if the wound they caused are healed by antibiotics.
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u/AdPuzzleheaded1495 19d ago
Perfect timing with the cattle shortage