State Capacity

May 30, 2020 9:06 AM

America's Never-Ending Battle Against Flesh-Eating Worms - "Inside the U.S. and Panama's long-running collaboration to rid an entire continent of a deadly disease." (thread/reader: "Screwworms were eradicated from the U.S. decades ago. But how? In the 1950s, the U.S. began growing millions of screwworms in a factory, sterilizing them with radiation, and dropping them out of planes. And this still happens today! Everyday!"; the USDA's screwworm eradication collection; merch/stickers; via)
posted by kliuless (16 comments total)

This is completely fascinating. I had no idea! I wonder if the reproductive facility is still able to operate during the pandemic?
posted by gryphonlover at 9:29 AM on May 30, 2020 [1 favorite]

Can we do this with mosquitoes ASAP pls?
posted by sharp pointy objects at 10:33 AM on May 30, 2020 [6 favorites]

We’re working on doing it for mosquitoes; it’s the same concept but it’s more difficult, for a variety of reasons related to lifecycle and behavior.
posted by SaltySalticid at 10:38 AM on May 30, 2020 [9 favorites]

It's really too bad the various countries can't get their act together and roll the edradication through South America.

Also not making the effort in Cuba because of ideologicaly differences is heartbreaking.
posted by Mitheral at 10:45 AM on May 30, 2020 [4 favorites]

Yes, reading the story I was wondering, “why stop at Panama?” and was disheartened by the answer.

I actually first heard about this program from the chilling 1977 science fiction story “The Screwfly Solution,” by James Tiptree Jr. (pen name of Alice Sheldon). Great story, but be aware, it is about/an indictment of violent misogyny.
posted by ejs at 10:54 AM on May 30, 2020 [12 favorites]

And this still happens today!

So...Not chemtrails, afterall! Wormtrails!
posted by Thorzdad at 10:56 AM on May 30, 2020 [3 favorites]

My two immediate reactions were:
1) there is probably dozens of thousands of things in place to keep the world the way it is and if society truly collapses we'll be living the rest of our lives in a country unrecognizable.

2)there is a (very racist) narrative about how exotic and disgusting and hellacious and deadly other countries' fauna is, but not the us! Its imbedded into our psyche, even as children, lots of science and animal children's books are framed in the "exotic" narrative. It's apparent now that the entire world is full of things that want to eat us, because that's just how life works.
posted by FirstMateKate at 11:58 AM on May 30, 2020 [11 favorites]

Came here to make sure the Screwfly Solution got mentioned. There was a pretty good adaptation directed by Joe Dante on the Masters of Horror anthology series.
posted by rmd1023 at 12:01 PM on May 30, 2020 [4 favorites]

I was there a couple years before this and noticed the key deer looked kinda mangy. I assumed it was because they were subsisting on scraps from No Name Pub.
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 12:24 PM on May 30, 2020 [1 favorite]

There was an outbreak of screwworm Cochliomyia hominivorax in North Africa in July 1989, probably brought in with imported Uruguayan livestock. There was a huge flap because they foresaw that if the infestation spread round or across the Sahara, that would be the end of antelope in the Serengeti. The FAO in Rome owned the responsibility and a recently arrived Irishman Paddy Cunningham was tasked to deal with the problem. They spent $75-100 million, largely on air-freighting a billion sterile screwworms from a factory in Mexico to Benghazi via Frankfurt for shovelling out of the window of small planes which quartered across 40,000 sq.km of Libya, Tunisia and Algeria. Vets on the ground meanwhile monitored the spread and eventual retreat of cases in domestic animals. It all worked like clock-work, except when one flight was delayed and all the flies hatched out on the runway in Frankfurt. By April 1991, it was case closed. $100m ? A 1:50 snip on the cost-benefit scale.
posted by BobTheScientist at 12:31 PM on May 30, 2020 [17 favorites]

Great. Now I get to add "wondering whether 2020 will be the year irradiated screwworms finally mutate into some kind of super-organism" to my anxieties about this year.
posted by Nerd of the North at 12:32 PM on May 30, 2020 [5 favorites]

Fans of birds and other interrelated species have concerns about the repercussions of doing this with mosquitoes. Screw worms I’m less inclined to argue about. Might be short-sighted of me, but I live near the Keys, have lived on farms, so I’m going to admit my bias.
posted by Nancy_LockIsLit_Palmer at 12:42 PM on May 30, 2020

It should be noted that mosquito efforts are only for those specific species which carry malaria, dengue, zika, chikungunya, and yellow fever etc. These are a very small subset of the total species that carry the diseases yet are responsible for something like 1 in 6 disease infections. There could be problems still but it is not like we are trying to get rid of all mosquitoes.

Heck in the case of malaria (maybe the others?) once the disease was eliminated we could reintroduce that species of mosquito. It's the parasite the mosquito carries that is the problem.
posted by Mitheral at 7:32 PM on May 30, 2020 [6 favorites]

Fantastic read. The Atlantic's science writing is so good that their recent layoffs are especially painful.
posted by deludingmyself at 8:05 PM on May 30, 2020 [6 favorites]

Metafilter: hominivorax
posted by away for regrooving at 10:59 PM on May 30, 2020 [1 favorite]

Great read, thanks.
posted by skewed at 10:37 AM on May 31, 2020