Screwworm Infections Get Worse, Government Unleashing Drone Army For Surveillance

from the we’re-screwed dept

A couple of months back, we discussed how screwworm infections had reappeared in Texas for the first time in decades. The foreign surveillance program designed to keep this from occurring in partnership with countries south of the border dissipated after losing funding as a result of the DOGE bros deciding it just wasn’t worth it. So, just as with measles, the country had to deal with a problem that we had once essentially eradicated with a good government program.

Screwworms are a very real and serious problem if left unchecked. Flies lay their eggs in livestock, mainly cattle, and it can kill the host in a matter of weeks. There are currently reports that hundreds of Mexican citizens have also been infected. And on the American side of the border, the problem is getting worse, not better. As a result, the government is diverting drones from patrolling the border to instead look for screwworm infections in livestock.

Since the first screwworm cases were detected in South Texas in June, the US Department of Agriculture and US Customs and Border Protection have been conducting “one of the most extensive animal-health surveillance operations in the country,” the USDA said on August 10 in social media posts on platforms like X and Facebook.

The effort involves at least 200 drones owned by the Department of Homeland Security, which includes the Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agency. But the actual number in use “varies depending on availability and need,” a USDA spokesperson told Ars.

The USDA also described performing 1,226 drone flights that surveyed more than 23,000 animals as of August 11.

This all costs money. As does the reinvestment in facilities to release sterile flies to reduce their overall numbers in both Mexico and domestically. $21 million was spent in Mexico for this. Untold millions are being spent for a facility at Moore Air Base in Texas. $25 million is being spent right now to build another facility in Arizona. The grant that DOGE canceled funded animal disease surveillance programs generally, including that of screwworms, cost $170 million. We’ve likely already eclipsed the cost of keeping screwworms out of the country in the government’s response this outbreak.

And what it’s reappearance risks is nearly $2 billion in damage to the Texas economy.

$1.8 billion. That’s how much economic damage could be caused by another outbreak on the scale of the Texas incident in 1976, according to USDA estimates.

This is the very definition of stepping over dollars to pick up pennies. It’s governmental malpractice and a failure of stewardship of taxpayer dollars and the economic health of America, which was the very fucking thing DOGE was pitched to have as its north star.

Our government is currently very broken, and brutally stupid. And we have yet another health issue, not to mention a food supply issue, as a result.

getting screwed

Filed Under: cbp, screwworm, texas, usda