Discussion summary
Screwworm control efforts faced delays and political disputes in 2023, with some attributing issues to funding cuts and cross-border challenges. Discussions included the potential of gene drives and ethical concerns about past research.
What the discussion says
- Funding cuts and political disputes hinder screwworm control efforts.
- Gene drives are considered a potential solution.
- Ethical issues limit modern research methods.
“Delays were caused by political disputes and funding issues.”
“Gene drives could be a future solution.”
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- Hacker News
- > The Southwest Animal Health Research Foundation (SWAHRF), an organization formed by a small group of Texas livestock producers… broke the logjam by raising millions of dollars in voluntary donations from Texas ranchers for screwworm eradication.
That can’t be right. The Texas Department of Agriculture published a piece titled “Dollars Don’t Kill Screwworms” just two years ago.
https://texasagriculture.gov/News-Events/Article/10239/OPINI...
> Listen, dollars don’t kill screwworms. Sterile flies do. Detection systems do. We already have the tools to manage this issue because we’ve been doing it successfully for decades.
See? We don't need big government programs to get this under control, we just need farmers to… I dunno… raise and breed their own own sterile flies, or buy them from Walmart.
by Eric_WVGG - I have a question for folks who have background in interventions like these.
Isn't there a risk that the artificially introduced reproductory pressures would select for screwworms that produce males that are resistant to radiation.
My chain of reasoning is that not all the of the irradiated males would be completely sterile. If so, then the next generation would be a mix of hatchlings of not radiated parents and those parents who have not been completely sterilized in spite of radiation -- thereby increasing the proportion of radiation resistant varieties, assuming resistance is an inheritable trait. These may then find themselves at the input side of sterile male generation factories.
The intervention obviously worked, but was that because steps were taken to counteract the possibility of raising radiation resistant varieties.
BTW the article was a great read.
by srean - Out of curiosity I looked up the cost to south American beef producers like Argentina/brazil. The extra constant animal inspections costs ~$10 per cattle up until slaughter I think. Not a huge cost but a pain nonetheless.by comrade1234
- Thanks to the author. That was a great read imho. Loved the early parts about the guys who -- despite the ridicule and lack of resources -- achieved eradication. Again, great read.
- > Eventually capable of producing more than 200 million screwworm flies a week, the Mission factory was a grotesque marvel of insect-producing efficiency. Operating 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, it was, in essence, a 76,000-square-foot artificial wound. Trays full of meat, blood, and water, each one heated to the exact right temperature to stimulate screwworm growth, moved through the facility on a monorail system timed to the lifecycle of the screwworm.
Imagine working at the screwworm factory.
by whalesalad - I wonder if anyone ever did the math on whether trying to maintain a barrier at the Darian Gap with occasional failures was really a better financial choice than teaming up with South American countries to drive screwworms to extinction.by goda90
- Recent and related:
Oh good, screwworms are back (2025) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48475898 - June 2026 (79 comments)
First U.S. screwworm case confirmed in South Texas - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48397036 - June 2026 (34 comments)
by dang - > Overall, the screwworm program seems like a classic case of something becoming a victim of its own success: a problem got solved so thoroughly that we forget how big of a problem it was, and we gradually undermine the conditions that made the solution possible.
Chesterson's Fence strikes again. It's so easy to wax poetic about how ineffective government spending always is and should be cut to the bone that we don't stop to recognize that preventative programs like this save us from billions in economic losses.
by CodingJeebus