I'd love to blame this entirely on DOGE and trump but honestly this was a perfect storm that built up over decades.

The screwworm was eradicated from the US a long time ago using sterile fly releases that pushed the population progressively southward until the Darién Gap became the permanent chokepoint. They maintained the barrier there with sterile fly releases and ground monitoring and it worked. It worked so well that the Mission, Texas facility closed in 1981 and the Mexico facility closed in 1999 because there was no longer a need for them.

That success is part of what caused the problem. Complacency set in, and capacity eroded. Then COVID wrecked the monitoring infrastructure. Ground teams couldn't operate, sterile fly releases got disrupted, and the barrier at the Gap was breached. The flies started moving north again and the program didn't have the capacity it once did to respond.

DOGE cuts to USDA APHIS in 2025 hit an already compromised program at the worst possible time reduced staffing and funding when they needed to be scaling up emergency sterile fly production and reestablishing the barrier.

So yes, the current administration made it worse. The vulnerability was already there before those cuts, and once COVID broke the barrier there was always a real chance they were going to make it back to the US regardless.

Fuck DOGE and trump though for real, I just cant get on this "its entirely their fault" train.