DOGE Cut Screwworm Fly Monitoring Program From USAID Last Year. Now They’re Back In The U.S.

from the doge-screwworms-america dept

Back in March of 2025, when Elon Musk was spearheading his bullshit DOGE non-agency and running around cutting funding to all kinds of government programs under the notion that they were a blatant waste of taxpayer money, the cuts were so obviously haphazard and ill-informed that it was making everyone’s head spin. Then, after cuts to funding and staff were done, the very same Trump administration began scrambling to restore it after government agencies found themselves unable to function properly as a result.

But not every bit of funding was restored. Part of what DOGE cut was roughly 5,000 funding grants for USAID. One of those grants funded a detection and warning program for, you guessed it, screwworms!

Following the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s confirmation on Wednesday that the New World screwworm fly has reached south Texas for the first time in decades, questions are being raised about what role DOGE cuts played in what could become a crisis to the nation’s cattle industry.

The Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency gutted the United States Agency for International Development, which included a program dedicated to preventing the spread of the parasite across the U.S.-Mexico border, according to a report from Agri-Pulse published last March, which cited a list of cut programs sent to Congress.

The screwworm prevention program was part of roughly 5,300 grants and programs cut from USAID. The program also monitored outbreaks of avian flu in Asia, according to the report.

Everyone who was paying attention knew then that screwworm flies were a major problem. These parasites infect livestock, pets, and sometimes humans by burrowing into their flesh to lay their eggs, potentially killing the host in a matter of weeks. A mass-infection event would decimate the livestock of cattle specifically in America, which is already at an extremely low level. That reduction in cattle counts occurred because there are fewer ranchers today than before, which is itself due to the increasing costs of raising cattle in America. Those costs would be for fuel, parts for ranching equipment, and fertilizer. And you can explain most of those rising costs on a combination of tariffs and our idiotic maybe-war with Iran.

Meanwhile, the cost of beef has been further driven higher because of a USDA import ban on Mexican cattle that has been in place since May of 2025. You’ll never guess why that ban was put in place.

“The United States has ordered the suspension of livestock imports through ports of entry along our southern border after the continued spread of the New World Screwworm in Mexico. Secretary Berdegué and I have worked closely on the NWS response; however, it is my duty to take all steps within my control to protect the livestock industry in the United States from this devastating pest,” said Secretary Rollins. “The protection of our animals and safety of our nation’s food supply is a national security issue of the utmost importance. Once we see increased surveillance and eradication efforts, and the positive results of those actions, we remain committed to opening the border for livestock trade. This is not about politics or punishment of Mexico, rather it is about food and animal safety.”

But those increased efforts never came to pass, in part because DOGE cut the funding for them. This government doesn’t have the ability to claim they didn’t know screwworm flies were a problem. Its own USDA said it was. The Trump administration can’t claim it isn’t responsible for the reappearance of the parasite or blame the rising cost of beef and milk on someone else. Trump’s tariffs and war with Iran are directly responsible for it, and any significant issue with screwworm flies will cause that cost to rise even further.

Hell, ranchers have apparently been screaming about this to try to get the government’s attention for months and months now.

Agriculture officials and cattle industry leaders raised alarm about the cuts at the time and, for the last several months, pleaded with the government to step in as they monitored screwworm infections moving north through Mexico—but they were ignored, Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller told NBC News.

And now we’re here, once again, with another once-eliminated issue that will plague the American people due to this administration’s rank incompetence. Just like the measles. This government is leading us backwards.

So what’s the plan for screwworm flies now? Fly-sniffing dogs and the release of millions of sterile male flies to crowd out the parasite’s ability to reproduce. And that actually is the proper plan to combat this thing… long term. But not in the immediate, which is why we’re likely to see it spread.

The plan to prevent a US outbreak of the New World Screwworm focuses on deploying hundreds of millions of genetically-altered sterile flies. Experts, though, say the supply of sterile flies is too low to immediately impact and halt the growing screwworm population.

60 years our country has been without the New World Screwworm. And now it’s back. Because this government would rather do government cut dinner theater than the hard work of governing.

So they next time you’re at the grocery store and can’t believe the price of a steak, you can thank the Trump administration for it.

Filed Under: cattle, doge, elon musk, screwworm, trump admininstration, usaid, usda