This is really bad. The US should have put in the funds to exterminate this thing while we still had a functioning government. I dislike the article's focus on prices as the main consequence here. Screwworms are fucking horrifying, and they can affect humans, too.
this post was submitted on 02 Jun 2025
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They did. It's in the article and the summary above.
Screwworms were eradicated from the U.S. in the 1960s when researchers began releasing massive numbers of sterilized male screwworm flies who mate with wild female screwworms to produce infertile eggs.
Eradication =/= extermination. The latter means zero left alive on the whole planet. The fact that the US stopped at clearing screworms from only North America while leaving them alive in the south (and Cuba) always left the possibility of this happening.
Both of those words are used synonymously. Never mind you have to take into account that eradicating screwworms for 60+ years was about as good as it could get ... especially considering that in the 60s nobody knew about global warming and the migratory effect it would have on pests and diseases.
I dislike the article’s focus on prices as the main consequence here. Screwworms are fucking horrifying, and they can affect humans, too.
I imagine they remember the far off year of 2021, where the threat of drowning in you own lungs was not considered sufficient reason for a great many people to give a shit.
Expensive burgers may be the lever needed to get people to pay attention.
In case anyone is curious what a screwworm infection can do to, say, a human...
These things are terrifying. Watch at your own peril.
Y'all can afford beef?
I can barely afford to pay attention
Wait, I thought we have been eradicating them since the 1960s? Like Ultra mega genocidal eradication.
You did. Then global warming happened and the screwworm flies have been migrating north.
Yay. I love good news!
Make beef great again.
Just watched the Kurzgesagt video that dropped today. It seems it was on point.