I helped get a 1960 documentary film showing the details of how we eradicated the screwworm with radiation digitized and posted here [1]. Kinda gross but worth seeing to help emphasize how bad these things are.
> The barrier, as I observed when I reported from Panama several years ago, consisted of planes releasing millions of sterile screwworms to rain down over the Darién Gap every week
This reminds me of the Michael Lewis book The Fifth Risk. It's one of the millions of little things the US Gov does to manage risk to the USA, its neighbouring countries and the world at large.
It's fairly common in Argentina in cattle (also in Brazil).
Time for a gruesome anecdote!
My dad is a retired ophthalmologist (eye doctor), he used to do residences in a public hospital specialized on eyes for the Greater Buenos Aires area (several million people nearby, so you see all kinds of weird crap).
Once I asked him what was the nastiest case he had attended and he told me it was one of a drunk guy that passed out and slept with his eyes not fully closed.
While asleep the flies laid eggs on the eyeball, he waited too long to go to a hospital and my dad had to take the worms one by one from the poor dude's eyes.
He survived but lost both eyes.
Normally is mostly dangerous only to animals, there are sprays you can put on a wound that will kill the larvae and help the animal heal.
People really are not aware of how much the US government does both nationally and globally to maintain a Pax Americana, and not just against terrorists or rogue states. It also does so against agricultural pests, diseases, etc.
Good news is that Ivermectin works to kill the worm larvae: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/3840994/
This was also discussed last month.
[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43881065 (24 days ago, 129 points)
Ars Technica had an article on this on 2 May:
https://arstechnica.com/health/2025/05/screwworms-are-coming...
While this can probably be explained by flaws in the program, I wonder if there's a chance of an evolutionary jump that would help the screwworms overcome the sterilization program. Increased radiation resistance, females mating multiple times, self-fertilization, etc.
As if the animal agriculture wasn't horrible enough
Silver lining: the next Tremors movie will not be yet another franchise reboot :)
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We kinda did this to ourselves, as we insisted on eating vast quantities of meat for billions, which likely caused a huge range expansion [1]. And global warming is likely to make it worse [2]. I can't help but think it's a bit of karma – if everyone just ate meat once a month we could have much less livestock and a much more manageable screwworm problem.
[1] https://academic.oup.com/jme/article-abstract/48/2/280/89277... [2] https://resjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/...
Life is too short to worry about bugs.
Interesting article! Also good to see what we have done, and anything done with international cooperation is almost always a good thing.
Off topic, but it is good to see The Atlantic back to doing non-political quality journalism! As a company they had gone down a dark partisan rabbit hole of just propagandizing for one political party.
I had blocked The Atlantic in Apple News, now I am going to start reading them again.
>How screwworms managed to jump the barrier in 2022 is not fully clear. But in the years immediately before, the coronavirus pandemic reportedly created supply-chain snarls at the fly factory in Panama and disrupted regular cattle inspections that might have set off the alarm bells earlier. And the border between Panama and Colombia got a lot busier; the Darién Gap, once a notoriously impenetrable jungle, became a popular route for migrants.
This seems to imply that the situation is fairly clear and was caused by mass migration.
Not a great feather to have in your cap as a statesman.
Discussed 25 days ago:
Deadly Screwworm Parasite's Comeback Threatens Texas Cattle, US Beef Supply - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43881065 - May 2025 (180 comments)