Biden wasn’t the one who defunded efforts to prevent the spread of the screwworm.
Fucker.
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.
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.
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.
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.
lol, Biden.
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”
Biden blame is a stupidity test.
Fuck those goddamn fucks.
one could argue that the ‘screwworm’ has been alive and well inside the u.s. for going on 80 years, spotted in various places over the last decade, including washington d.c. and south florida’s atlantic coast.
In those times were the government actively defunding the program and many many others whilst doing blatant corruption such as awarding themselves millions of dollars by leveraging courts? All whilst screaming “rigged elections”?
If not, then why the fuck you stepping in for Trump. You know, just let the bad news for him be bad news. You don’t gotta stand up and be like “Don’t worry MAGA dumbies and people who worry a lot - this happens all the time. What Trump is doing here has happened before and we pulled through” - which is the effect of your comment, whether intended or not.
So now some conservative news junkie monitoring Lemmy will go to r/conservative having written an article “top ten times screw worm made it this far” and no one will care about the issue or why it’s happening THIS TIME. You don’t devil’s advocate when it’s normalizing a bad faith actor. Save it for people who deserve it.
I think the comment was trying to be a dis about the GOP being the screwworms.
and one raging lunatic in particular.
Maryland case - Maryland Confirms 1st Human Case of Flesh-Eating Screwworm in US.
More recent Florida case - One case of New World Screwworm in Florida detected last week
Both of these cases happened abroad and travelled to the US, where it was identified and treated. The cases happening in Texas are actually spreading locally. There’s a huge difference between these situations
Sick burn
