New World Screwworm Update

An outbreak is confirmed

By: Austin Abbring

June 19, 2026

(This is a follow-up piece to a previous work of mine covering the first confirmed case of New World screwworm from the beginning of the month. For initial information, check out that article linked here.)

Now that we are two weeks post the initial cases of screwworm, the first of such in the United States since the 1960’s, we are officially experiencing an outbreak. There are now 12 confirmed cases between Texas and New Mexico. Texas Governor Greg Abbot has issued a statewide disaster declaration and is mobilizing additional USDA inspectors.

Credit: USDA https://www.aphis.usda.gov/animals/animal-health/livestock-and-poultry-disease/current-status/us-confirmed-cases-new-world 

Most confirmed screwworm cases have been in cattle and other livestock so far, but the good news is that there has been no contamination of food products. That is basically the only silver lining to take from this. The USDA has responded by increasing its production of sterile flies, an effective method that has eradicated screwworm in the United States for the last sixty years. In fact, this method was utilized in Mexico, Panama, and farther south through Central America, and it was arguably the most effective measure of international disease control in the history of the Americas. The USDA hopes that releasing around 500 million sterile flies per week will dramatically reduce screwworm reproduction in the wild.

The FDA has invested around $100 million in projects to bolster national preparedness and to enhance fly production, and has also issued an “Emergency Use Authorization” for generic drugs for treatment and prevention of infestations in livestock. The investment in projects related to screwworm prevention is all well and good, but we already had guardrails that helped curb diseases and infestations before this administration slashed government agencies, such as the USDA. I won’t get too deep into the DOGE cuts again, but this outbreak is largely the result of that agency's extremely inefficient efforts. Cattle farmers are already facing climate change challenges, but cuts as the USDA has faced will cripple farmers over the next decade. The climate change implications are two-pronged in this scenario: cattle ranchers are not only dealing with higher temperatures leading to drought, which then impacts livestock production, but they are also seeing the screwworm populations' expansion all around and migration further and further north as a result of the climate shifts. 

Furthermore, the outbreak is exacerbated when you have a cabinet full of unqualified, loyalist sycophants. The U.S. Agriculture Secretary, Brooke Rollins, has made her career as a political strategist. She is a skeptic of climate science and lacks extensive experience in agronomy or agriculture. Do not let her degree in agricultural development fool you. She has spent the vast majority of this outbreak blaming the Biden administration (no shocker there) and undocumented immigrants spreading the flies northward with any cattle they bring along their journey towards the United States. Also, no shocker here, she made this claim without providing a single iota of evidence. She really fits into the Trump regime: blame Biden or Obama, spew vitriol towards Hispanic immigrants, and espouse zero empirical evidence. 

So far, there has not been a dramatic increase in already record-high beef prices. The containment of this outbreak will be indicative of any further increase in costs. Let’s hope they are successful. Let’s also hope a Republican administration will learn something from this, too, about the ramifications of gutting “bureaucracy”. I won’t be holding my breath on that.