We are so screwed, so to speak.
Hamburgers will never be cheap as long as Donald Trump is president.
Flesh-eating screwworm is confirmed in the U.S., officials say
... "The United States has defeated this pest before, and we will do it again," the USDA said.
... Dudley Hoskins, undersecretary for marketing and regulatory programs at the USDA ... “USDA invested heavily in the tools needed to eliminate NWS ever since cases started increasing in Central America and Mexico,” Hoskins said. “The United States has defeated this pest before, and we will do it again.” ...
Confirmed screwworm case in Texas sends two biotech stocks higher
... regional director of the Federal Crop Agency ... “We just had a conditional use drug approved; U.S. producers can handle it.”
August 15, 2025:
... Washington has halted cattle imports from Mexico and invested millions in setting up a new sterile fly production plant in Metapa, Mexico. But it will take roughly a year to come online.
... The U.S. eliminated screwworms in the 20th century by flying planes over hotspots to drop red-striped boxes packed with sterile flies, sometimes called “cupcakes” by ranchers. The USDA constructed a fly production plant in Mission, Texas, in 1962, that pumped out 96 trillion flies until it was decommissioned in 1981. Now the USDA is planning to resurrect the plant to disperse sterile flies, while Texas officials have scattered 100 screwworm traps along the border.
USDA inspectors known as Tick Riders who patrol the border on horseback to guard against another pest, the cattle fever tick, have also been tasked with conducting screwworm preventive treatment for all cattle and horses they find in the border area.
At the heart of the problem is an unworkable math equation. The USDA estimated 500 million flies need to be released weekly to push the fly back to the Darien Gap. At its maximum, the Panama plant produces just 100 million.
“It’s an overwhelming situation at this point,” Dr. Lansford said. “Screwworm is obviously doing well in Mexico, and they’re up against the same challenges we are.” ...
October 21, 2025:
... Moscamed, as the factory is called, will begin manufacturing 100 million sterile flies by July 2026. ...
Until now, the sterile flies that are spread throughout the country to combat the screwworm plague (100 million each week) are brought from a plant managed by the Panama-United States Commission for the Eradication and Prevention of the Cattle Screwworm (Copeg), in Panama, where they have been working at maximum capacity to control the pest since January 2025. ...
With the other leg of the project, the construction of a manufacturing plant for these flies in Texas, international efforts project a production of up to 500 million flies per week, which will be released throughout the region. If international cooperation continues, myiasis could be eradicated in less time than the first time. Some representatives of Senasica have even talked about achieving this goal in five years. ...
USDA didn't break ground on the Texas facility until two months ago.
April 17, 2026:
USDA and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Break Ground on New Texas Sterile Fly Production Facility
... Initial operational capability targeted for November 2027, reaching production of 100 million sterile flies per week.
Construction continues immediately beyond initial operations to scale full production capacity to 300 million sterile flies per week. ...
This new state-of-the-art facility will complement USDA’s ongoing production of 100 million sterile flies per week at the Panama-based COPEG facility. USDA has also invested $21 million to support modernization of Mexico’s Metapa, MX facility, expected to be operational in summer 2026. ...
