Earlier quoted context omitted.
DOGE. It was ran by USAID.
It was failing long before this. The border used to be down by Panama.
Mexico to US livestock trade halted due to screwworm spread
51–60 of 219 posts
Re: Mexico to US livestock trade halted due to screwworm spread
#52A recent, relevant video from Kurzgesagt: How Nuclear Flies Protect You from Flesh-Eating Parasites https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxq60I5RSW8
Re: Mexico to US livestock trade halted due to screwworm spread
#53Re: Mexico to US livestock trade halted due to screwworm spread
#54A story from 2020 about how effective the US funded anti-screwworm program used to be. https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2020/05/flesh-ea... Archive link: https://archive.ph/3sD9d
Why is it "used to be"? I've heard about the program before and thought it was incredible. What happened to it? Edit: Brief research tells me the screwworms broke though to Mexico in November 2024 after cases started increasing north of the Darian Gap throughout 2023 ( https://www.aphis.usda.gov/news/program-update/new-world-scr... ). It does seem like the funding now is happening through USDA rather than USAID ( htt…
Re: Mexico to US livestock trade halted due to screwworm spread
#55Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why is it "used to be"? I've heard about the program before and thought it was incredible. What happened to it? Edit: Brief research tells me the screwworms broke though to Mexico in November 2024 after cases started increasing north of the Darian Gap throughout 2023 ( https://www.aphis.usda.gov/news/program-update/new-world-scr... ). It does seem like the funding now is happening through USDA rather than USAID ( htt…
Funding was recently cut but this infestation has been building for years. The key failure that caused this current outbreak was during COVID. The lockdowns shut down both the release flights by the US and the mosquito breeding facilities in Latina America, grinding the whole pest control program to a halt.
Re: Mexico to US livestock trade halted due to screwworm spread
#56Earlier quoted context omitted.
(Implied) invalid generalization, or confirmation bias. This is a good reason to not eat that particular meat. In general, however, meat is an S-tier source of nutrition, vitamins, and minerals.
How can something which is horribly inefficient for environment (water use, land use, greenhouse emissions from fertilizer) possibly be S tier?
Re: Mexico to US livestock trade halted due to screwworm spread
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
(Implied) invalid generalization, or confirmation bias. This is a good reason to not eat that particular meat. In general, however, meat is an S-tier source of nutrition, vitamins, and minerals.
How can something which is horribly inefficient for environment (water use, land use, greenhouse emissions from fertilizer) possibly be S tier?
Re: Mexico to US livestock trade halted due to screwworm spread
#58Earlier quoted context omitted.
It was failing long before this. The border used to be down by Panama.
The first sign of spread past panama was seen in Nov 2024. Parasites can spread fast and the US/Mexico needed to react fast to the fact that it spread past panama. In a critical time when monitoring and action were desperately needed, we eliminated the agency that'd do that.
If there had been any political will for this things would have been set in motion since 2023, likely even before that when the reports from the scientists working on control started pouring in.
Blaming a few weeks of funding lapse one year into an outbreak in a control project that's been running for decades is absurd.
From a link in this thread: However, since 2023, cases have been increasing in number and spreading north from Panama to Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala, Belize, and Mexico.
Re: Mexico to US livestock trade halted due to screwworm spread
#59Earlier quoted context omitted.
It was failing long before this. The border used to be down by Panama.
The border didn't magically eradicate the flies on one side. Pushing the border down to the Darien Gap took work, but we did it before and can do it again. The real problem is the gleeful destruction of government capacity to do things like this.
Re: Mexico to US livestock trade halted due to screwworm spread
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
By that logic you could argue rape is just nature too. At some point mankind added moral.
Of course rape is natural. Orangutans, ducks, geese, and certain dolphin species also rape. That's a problem if you think "natural" justifies human behavior, but why would it?
And I wrote „just nature“ because parent used it’s nature as a justification. Hence the moral part.