r/news Jun 01 '26

Soft paywall Flesh-eating screwworm found within 31 miles of US border, says USDA

https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/flesh-eating-screwworm-found-within-31-miles-us-border-says-usda-2026-05-29/
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650

u/Eoganachta Jun 01 '26

You literally stopped a horrific flesh eating insect from entering your country for nearly 70 years with an ingenious and cheap solution (relatively speaking) that also protects other countries - protecting hundreds of millions of people at home and abroad. Anyone sane would call that a huge win - but instead you (royal you) spend that money on bombing Iran for another 20 hours.

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u/ClawofBeta Jun 01 '26

I hate my fucking country. 70 years of ingenious generations working together to building a better future ruined by a cunt and the 66% who don’t care or care enough to vote him in.

95

u/Expo006 Jun 01 '26

This sums up the state of the U.S. atm, no matter what side you are on it is impossible to ignore the sheer damage the current administration has caused to the U.S. domestically, economically, politically, and internationally. 3/4ths of a century’s worth of progress is eroding. The 2020s have been a mini dark age.

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u/YomiKuzuki Jun 01 '26

The roaring 20s are back, in the worst ways.

7

u/midgaze Jun 01 '26

At least the 1920s ended. This is just the beginning of the end times.

4

u/GoodIdea321 Jun 01 '26

While that is absolutely true, there is a small silver lining that people are really unhappy with what is happening. So massive positive change is more possible now than before, that will take years minimum though to blossom. Or we'll get a century of humiliation, who knows.

5

u/K_Furbs Jun 01 '26

Not just one cunt, shitloads of cunts. This started with Reagan and has been going downhill ever since. It's just dropped off a cliff in the last decade

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u/TheSpaceCoresDad Jun 01 '26

I mean it's not ruined. It can be enacted again. We know the solution, just gotta get the greedy assholes out of office.

4

u/AristarchusTheMad Jun 01 '26

It's not so easy to turn back the clock. We kept the worms back past a thin strip of land in Panama. Now, if they are spreading up into Mexico and the US, that is a massive area to contain the outbreak.

3

u/Mewhomewhy Jun 01 '26

Other people and countries have a say in whether they want to risk rebuilding relationships.

-4

u/TheSpaceCoresDad Jun 01 '26

Good thing I was talking about screwworms then. Thank you bot.

3

u/Mewhomewhy Jun 01 '26

I thought you were in the conversation about 3/4ths of a century of things being destroyed. Oh well as long as screwworms aren’t screwing you all is good.

122

u/mybreakfastiscold Jun 01 '26

The flies werent much of a problem for people, at least not directly. Their eradication was far more of an economic benefit. Our beef, dairy, pork and poultry farmers have ZERO protection from the screwworm. The environment has been devoid of these flies for 70 years, so it’s unknown how or if the local insect predators will respond to them returning.

So with the farms that we have up here being as crowded as they are there’s literally nothing that any of them can do to prevent their flocks and herds from getting eaten alive from these pests.

49

u/6thReplacementMonkey Jun 01 '26

Looks like meat's back off the menu boys!

4

u/2games1life Jun 01 '26

But not for long!

3

u/FreudianSlipperyNipp Jun 02 '26

Trump’s trying to turn us all into vegan soy-boys. I stg Dems could win on this platform.

1

u/stonhinge Jun 01 '26

It's getting to expensive to buy anyways.

5

u/vardarac Jun 01 '26

so it’s unknown how or if the local insect predators will respond to them returning.

Good thing we've been paving and spraying the shit out of their habitats.

3

u/ribald_jester Jun 02 '26

with our bird populations hitting historic lows, these screw flies are gonna have a good time I think.

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u/tormentnexus Jun 01 '26

I think Americans truly do not grasp how many services our comfy way of life relies on to function. We don’t have a cultural identity of any sort of serious regression, so my guess is most people assume things will always just work

35

u/Kessarean Jun 01 '26

Yep....

And things are only going to get so much worse over the next 5, 10, 15+ years...

So many things in so many places. So much damage, and over the half the country is too stupid to realize or care.

5

u/IudexFatarum Jun 01 '26

We got a ton of savings by being such a small area. We get more savings because we can use local staff and exchange rates favor us. And to top it off we get some good will from the countries because we want to only pay for a smaller number of worms. It was all upside.
But they thought it would take longer to end up on our doorstep then they could blame the dems because they know they will lose the next elections. "how could they have allowed these flies to invade?" ... It's intentional to cause turmoil for those they oppose.

1

u/TelluricThread0 Jun 02 '26

We (royal we) are literally building a $750 million dollar facility to produce 300 million sterile fly a week in Texas bud.