screwworm

Oh boy, another possible screwworm infestation? This is what happens when you mindlessly cut government. According to the GOP, government must be reduced in size, apparently no matter how many may die or how many disease outbreaks may occur. After all, the U.S. health apparatus kept pushing Covid-19, contradicting Trump and making Trump look bad, so all health agencies must be destroyed. It's as simple as that.

Josh Helfgott

BREAKING A flesh‑eating parasite just showed up in Texas cattle for the first time since the 1960s — and thanks to Trump’s budget cuts, it could drive beef prices even higher.

Federal officials have confirmed a case of New World screwworm in a calf in South Texas, near La Pryor, Zavala County. This isn’t a normal fly. Its larvae burrow into open wounds and literally eat living tissue; untreated, an animal can die in a couple of weeks.

Screwworm was once so destructive that the U.S. and Mexico spent decades and hundreds of millions of dollars eradicating it using a sterile‑fly program that released millions of lab‑raised, non‑breeding males along the southern border to keep the pest out of U.S. herds. It worked — until now.

Under Trump, that prevention wall has been quietly dismantled. His administration slashed money for screwworm surveillance and sterile‑fly production, even as scientists warned that climate change and cross‑border livestock trade were pushing the pest north again.

A key USDA program that funded sterile‑fly releases and inspections on the U.S.–Mexico border was downsized and delayed. The White House also pushed for cuts to international cooperation with Mexico and Central America, where the flies are still endemic, bragging about “wasteful foreign programs” being axed. Ranchers and public‑health experts said at the time that this was exactly how you invite screwworm back into Texas cattle country.

Now it’s here — and the economic stakes are huge. USDA modeling suggests a serious outbreak in Texas alone could cost more than $2 billion a year in livestock losses, vet bills, and trade disruptions. Before eradication, screwworm outbreaks forced ranchers to shoot or amputate infected animals; now, with today’s smaller cattle herd and already record‑high beef prices, losing calves to a preventable parasite will tighten supply even more.

One analysis estimated that if screwworm spreads, national beef production could drop enough to push prices up for consumers on top of inflation and drought‑driven herd reductions. Border cattle imports from Mexico have already been restricted over screwworm concerns, shrinking the supply of feeder cattle that feedlots rely on.

And here’s the part the right won’t say out loud: this is what “cutting the deep state” actually looks like in real life. The people Trump smeared as faceless bureaucrats were the ones running the sterile‑fly plants, inspecting cattle trucks, and catching this parasite before it got into a Texas pasture.

When you gut long‑term prevention to score budget talking points, you don’t just hurt agencies. You hurt ranchers, workers at packing plants, and every family standing in front of a meat case at the grocery store.

We’re about to hear a lot of spin that blames “Biden inflation” or “migrant cattle” for every jump in beef prices. But remember: scientists and ranchers warned years ago that slashing screwworm defenses was a time bomb. Trump cut the wires anyway.

The bill is coming due — not for him, but for the people who raise our food and the families already struggling to afford it.