Biden wasn’t the one who defunded efforts to prevent the spread of the screwworm.
Fucker.
The worms are in charge, buddy.
I mean. It crossed the gap during Biden iirc
The gap has been crossed many times in the 50+ years that the barrier has been in place. These crossings aren’t failures, but inevitable when trying to wage war on a flying insect with an average lifespan of 21 days. Keeping the screwworm at bay requires constant effort and monitoring. Here’s an excerpt from the 2020 article"America’s Never-ending Battle Against Flesh-eating Worms"
“To get the screwworms out, the USDA to this day maintains an international screwworm barrier along the Panama-Colombia border. The barrier is an invisible one, and it is kept in place by constant human effort. Every week, planes drop 14.7 million sterilized screwworms over the rainforest that divides the two countries. A screwworm-rearing plant operates 24/7 in Panama. Inspectors cover thousands of square miles by motorcycle, boat, and horseback, searching for stray screwworm infections north of the border. The slightest oversight could undo all the work that came before.”
“The slightest oversight could undo all the work that came before”, huh? Shame DOGE didn’t give a fuck when they slashed screwworm monitoring programs.
The failure we’re seeing isn’t a failure to keep the screwworms out of the US (which any administration would inevitably fail to maintain perfectly), but a failure in monitoring and proactive preventative efforts to maintain the barrier. Fuck knows how long it’s been spreading before it was noticed, given that it’s already affecting multiple states.
The blame for what happens now lies solely with Trump and his cronies.
I heard it crossed the gap traveling in RFKs brain. Not sure how that’s Bidens fault.
Ah liberals.
That’s pretty much the same response I get from my maga family when I show them evidence that contradicts clearly their claims.
Was the “rfk brain crossing” evidence lol
Pretty much on par with any evidence brought forth by anyone claiming election fraud in 2020. Except this time it’s funny.
Is it funny
You are getting downvoted, but containment was breached in 2022. Personally, I’m unsure how much orangeboi’s first stint harmed matters - did they kneecap funding for that? I’d believe it, to be clear, but I do think it’s important to bring receipts in matters like this.
And that said, while I’m sure the US had some sort of role in supporting the quarantine zone at the Darien Gap, I’m not familiar enough with the nuance of their operations to say whether or not it was the US, Panama, or someone else dropping the ball, or simply a combination of bad luck and natural adaptation. We are talking about a species of parasitic insect here - the lifecycle is so quick that 22 years very well may have been enough time for evolution to throw a wrench into containment efforts.
Edit: yes, by all means, continue downvoting because I and other users are pointing out that (CW: images of active infestation in animals) there is a lot of context and detail to this situation and it’s not actually as simple as “orangeboi cut funding”.
While it is true that orangeboi surely did not help, and him gutting programs to track things like this at the start of his second term (note: in 2024, which is after the original containment breach in Panama in 2022) was absolutely fucking stupid, the breach did not actually occur on his watch. The outbreak made it from Panama to the Mexican state of Chiapas between 2022 and 2024, all under Biden’s purview.
By no means am I defending orangeboi here. I’m simply saying that to my eye, this is looking a lot like one of the many areas in which Biden dropped the ball, and orangeboi exacerbated the matter, and then tried to fully blame it on Biden. But both are culpable: Biden and his admin for not treating a horrifying parasitic outbreak with the “oh fuck all hands on deck” attitude that it deserves, and orangeboi and his regime for being simplistic imbecilic fucks with far more concern about getting rich and casting blame than doing literally anything else to help anyone else.
There have been many times where the gap has been breached in the 50+ years it’s been in place — it’s inevitable when dealing with a flying insect with such a short lifespan.
You’re right to highlight that multiple decades is a heckton of time when it comes to the evolutionary lifecycle of this fly, but keeping track of these kinds of changes is part of the intensive preventative work done by programs under USDA.
DOGE explicitly slashed the USDA, including the screwworm program. Some funding was restored at a later date, but I believe a lot of that was put towards the construction of a new plant that would breed sterile flies (which needed to be released weekly) — a plant that is a long way from being completed. Previously, the bulk of the flies being released were produced at a plant in Panama, which no doubt spurred the decision to build a new one in the US.
However, even if the new plant had already been online before Trump ordered USDA to pull back from intergovernmental cooperation with other countries, this outbreak might not have been averted. Progress in keeping the screwworm at bay has only been possible through constant cooperation between countries. Especially because monitoring fly populations and cases of screwworm (on both sides of the barrier line) is probably the most significant facet of the program. Inspectors have to patrol thousands of square miles of land by motorcycle, boat and horseback, and the amount of manpower that takes is insane. The US was previously contributing a heckton of that manpower, but I can’t imagine that monitoring has been anywhere close to how it used to be when the USDA has been bled dry of personnel
TL;DR: I was going to say that it was definitely the US who dropped the ball, but it would be more accurate to say that they threw it, with force, at the people who were most essential for keeping the screwworm at bay
My understanding is that the barrier weakened during covid, which would have caused multiple complications for containment efforts. Believe it or not, Trump can pretty fairly be blamed for covid getting as bad as it did, and thus can pretty fairly be blamed for this screwworm stuff.
I mean yeah, that is multiple fair points. All I’m saying is that it would behoove the strength of that argument to be able to establish a causal chain that makes that unavoidably clear.
Thanks for the article. It was an interesting read
I disagree with your assertion that Biden had much tondo with it though. Seems he maintained the status quo, and never made any direct decisions that affected screwworms
Trump has some blame because he authorized wonton cuts that ended up affecting screwworm monitoring, even if it was already out of containment
His admin also re-authorized cattle imports for 2 days even though it was obviously spreading in Mexico
Article talked about how it may have been a screwworm adaptation that allowed it to breach containment. I think that’s a compelling argument. If true, it would mean stopping at the Darien Gap was always a time bomb waiting to happen
We should have worked to completely eradicate the screwworm, rather than containing
My understanding is that there’s one factory producing the sterile flies. And it could have been expanded a long time ago.
I’m not saying Trump isn’t to blame but like everything else Biden didn’t do shit either.
rather odd people are getting downvoted for stating the actual science behind it. i think it was raging in south america for a long time, and it was never controlled in that continent.
The screwworm coverage so far is terrible.
First off, everyone is acting like this is a problem for beef prices (end of list). No, this is a problem for any mammal living in the southern US. FFS, some of the cases already are dogs- how are people not putting this together?
Second, Biden did whiff on the screwworm response in Central America. They should have pulled a Gandalf as screwworms spread north, but instead were modern Democrats and assumed the situation would fix itself until it was really bad.
Third, the real blame lies with whoever was POTUS before Biden (I can’t recall) for ignoring that the Panama facility holding the Darien Gap needed updates, more funding. We’re talking tens of millions of dollars to fix in 2018 what will now be a billions and billions problem. Trump- oh right it was Trump. Yeah, then when Covid hit they lost the Gap. To come back in 2025 and cut funding to to the program and re-open the border to animal disease vectors is insanity. Are we sure these people aren’t literal demons feeding on human misery?
Finally, an opinion I can fully agree with
How have they been getting by in Mexico and central America?
Hey how about you stop blaming people and actually try and fix the problem jackass.
I was just thinking in a sane world, that headline would have ended “and the governmental organizations are working with local groups and leading experts on preventing the spread”
Yeah he’ll put RFK right on that
He’s already infected.
he prefers the more elegant ones, the ones that burrows into your brain.
The screworm is in control now dude
But if they fix the problem then what will they have left to blame on Biden?
Oh don’t worry about that, they’ll always think of something.
Oh yeah, you’re right. I mean it’s not like it’s one of their favorite talking points, like border control, to the point where republicans would deliberately torpedo bipartisan legislation that they had helped to draft, during Biden’s presidency, specifically because trump told them to block it, because he didn’t want Biden to have a border win…
For Republicans it’s not how many times they can shoot themselves in the foot, but how many of their enemies they can hit with collateral damage in the process.
Biden blame is a stupidity test.
lol, Biden.
“Blaming Biden” … Is the worm still there?? … Fuck! “Blaming Biden HARDER!!!”
“The more likely explanation is that an administration with an antipathy to government ignored government’s purpose until it was too late.”
As a farmer, dairyman, and rancher with way too many cattle in Texas. I have this to say:
I was on the front lines of the bird flu cross species fiasco. Literally ground zero. Me and my cohorts were the boots on the ground and knew what was going on weeks before the state and fed acknowledged it. The acknowledgement of the problem was purely political and self serving. The government as a whole (state and fed) were refusing to test and confirm what we already knew. I have evidence and correspondence with officials and veterinarians to back it up.
My take away: it’s a god damn miracle we survived Covid as well as we did. That should have been so much worse.
When it comes to the screwfly situation: I had little faith under previous administrations this would be handled properly. In Texas, sid miller was talking about woke agendas and playing partisan hack instead of prioritizing resources. We’ve had almost two god damn years! They all figured the people they were firing and defunding would handle it properly. With what resources?. Systematically dismantling our safety nets caused this.
This problem is one hundred percent political incompetence. Any IT professional that has been laid off because " your department doesn’t do anything" will tell you that a successful job done is literally twiddling your thumbs because you did it right. Y2k was a victory lap that the general public and politicians laugh at because it wasn’t a problem. It wasn’t a problem because we fixed it before the world ended. This screw fly trainwreck is what happens when you don’t listen to IT and fire them all for being lazy.
Detection in mexico was non existent. The screw fly hits the states and what is left of our protection finds it. Great job. Too late.
Tldr, your hamburger and steak prices will continue to be more expensive, but not from this. But the suffering of both domestic animals and wildlife will be greatly increased because these dipshits wanted to play politics instead of giving a shit about the bigger picture.
COVID likely killed over 1,000,000 Americans.
Not sure I’d say we did well.
ok. Biden did it. you’re so right. glad he’s gone.
NOW FUCKING FIX IT
As everyone knows, if Biden broke it only Biden can fix it. You have to elect Biden again.
Oh so it was Biden who axed the programs that monitor the spread of the screw worm fly got it got it got it
Fuck those goddamn fucks.
The vast majority of cattle ranchers voted for the MAGA shitheads. I have sympathy for the cattle suffering from the screwworm and wish they could stampede the shit out of the ranchers.
Pretty sure its just family and local ranchers getting fucked. Isnt this just the same as Walmart taking advantage of every economic downturn to kill competition or buy them out?
Those family and local ranchers shouldn’t have voted for trump if they didn’t want leopards to eat their face.
They voted for this and are reaping what they sow, a principle they understand well.
Zero sympathy.
They voted for the only party that reached out to them. What did you expect? Another huge failure for the democrat party.
The only party that “reached out” to me was MAGA. I didn’t vote for trump because I used my brain to determine who to vote for.
Why didn’t they?
Did you not vote at all, or did you vote for the democrats who ignored you?
even getting screwed over they stll believed he will bail them out.
“I wonder who put that dick up my ass” -Conservatives/republicans after getting fucked by their own administration
The year is 2367 and the economy collapses.
It is Obama and Joe Bidens fault.
HAHAHAHAHHAA VERY OPTIMISTIC!
No but seriously we’re fucked.
It’s more likely than you’d think. I’m old enough to remember when John McCain and Mitch McConnell blamed the 2008 collapse on Jimmy Carter’s FHA reforms. Also remember getting an earful about how FDR turned a minor recession into a Great Depression by abandoning the good governance principles of Calvin Coolidge, and that we were still paying the economic price to this day.
doubles down to blame Biden.
Ok, sure. Maybe. But Biden isn’t president now. Don’t point fingers. Do something productive. Don’t cut the parts of government that are supposed to help with this kind of stuff.
No, this is a direct result of Musk cutting USAID. It’s not even a first term consequence, this is fully on this current Trump administration, within this electoral cycle.
