What a Flesh-Eating Parasite Teaches Us About Government

You don’t know what government does until it’s gone.

An Unintended Civics Lesson

Trump’s systematic dismantling of the federal government was not intended as a civics lesson. But watching the consequences unfold, even just one year in, has clarified my thinking about what the federal government is actually for.

One of its most important and least visible roles is preventing problems before they happen — the kind that require multiple agencies, multiple levels of government, sometimes multiple countries, all sustaining a system that no single actor has the incentive or the authority to build alone.

DOGE cut programs by an unknown assessment of effectiveness. Programs designed to prevent problems were easy targets: if nothing bad has happened, the program looks unnecessary. Not preventing a problem was seen as “not needed” rather than effective. One of those programs recently made headlines.

What Government Built

The New World screwworm is a fly whose larvae burrow into the living flesh of warm-blooded animals — livestock, pets, wildlife, occasionally people. The infestation is painful and often fatal if untreated. In the 1930s, it was devastating American cattle at a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars a year.

Starting in the 1950s, USDA scientists developed what became one of the most successful pest eradication programs in history. Female screwworm flies mate only once. Release enough sterile males into an infested area, and the females mate with them, lay eggs that never hatch, and the population collapses. The United States was declared screwworm-free by 1966.

Understanding that protecting American ranchers required holding the line beyond the U.S. border, the program kept running. It pushed the screwworm south through Mexico, then Guatemala, Belize, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and finally Panama, where a permanent barrier was established at the Daréin Gap in 2002. A joint U.S.-Panamanian facility bred and released up to 20 million sterile flies every week to hold it. A surveillance and monitoring system tracked the screwworm’s position across Central America and coordinated with foreign governments to respond when it moved. For six decades, the whole system worked.

It required sustained federal investment, USAID, and active cooperation with foreign governments across two continents. No private-sector actor would have built it, and no market incentive would have sustained it over 60 years and across seven countries.

Working Against Itself

Within the first months of the Trump administration, that coordination broke down.

DOGE cut two programs essential to the screwworm barrier. It eliminated the USAID grant that funded monitoring of the screwworm’s advance through Central America — the early warning system that tracked the pest's movement and coordinated with foreign governments to slow it. It also cut roughly 15 percent of USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, the domestic agency responsible for detecting and responding to agricultural threats at the border and inside the country.

Prior monitoring data had already shown the screwworm expanding northward, and that more sterile fly production capacity would be needed to hold the barrier. On Trump’s first day back in office, Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins announced a $100 million Grand Challenge to fund new screwworm-fighting technologies. The production and research sides continued. Without the monitoring, the program no longer worked.

The US government was spending $100 million to create new sterile screwworms, but no longer had the capability to deploy them effectively.

The Consequence

On June 3, 2026, USDA confirmed the first screwworm case in the U.S. livestock herd since 1966. By late June, confirmed cases had grown to 26, spread across 21 quarantined Texas counties, with a case confirmed in New Mexico. Texas officials barred the movement of livestock, hides, and carcasses out of infested zones without inspection.

The cattle industry is already at its smallest in 75 years, strained by drought and existing economic pressure. Beef and veal prices were up 12.9 percent year over year in May. The Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association estimates the outbreak could cost the state’s ranchers $735 million to $745 million a year if it is not contained.

What the Lesson Costs

The screwworm program worked for 60 years because its monitoring, production, and international partnerships moved in concert. Unglamorous and invisible, it held a line that protected American ranchers and consumers.

The screwworm is not the only example. In July 2025, the CDC scaled back FoodNet, a three-decade-old federal-state partnership that monitored eight foodborne pathogens, down to two. As of July 2026, cyclosporiasis — a parasitic illness causing severe gastrointestinal symptoms — has spread across 28 states, with more than 843 confirmed cases and over 1,500 awaiting confirmation. No source of contamination has been identified. The surveillance system that would have found it faster is gone.

My fear is that DOGE cuts many more effective integrated programs like this one, some of whose consequences will not be apparent for years, and all of which will be costly to rebuild. I will be writing more about what we are learning. We are now getting an education in what the federal government was quietly doing right.

Endnotes

1. New World screwworm biology, eradication history, and sterile insect technique: USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, New World Screwworm.

2. U.S.-Panama barrier at the Daréin Gap, COPEG facility, 20 million sterile flies released weekly: National Geographic, Inside the program that breeds billions of screwworm flies each year.

3. DOGE elimination of USAID screwworm monitoring program, part of 5,300 cuts: HuffPost, A Horrific Parasite Is Back — And Elon Musk’s DOGE Could Be Partly To Blame; Forbes, Screwworm in Texas Cattle Could Drive Up Beef Prices After DOGE Axed Prevention Efforts.

4. DOGE cut roughly 15 percent of USDA APHIS; agency of approximately 8,500 employees: USDA APHIS, 2024 Impact Report; American Prospect, Why That Next Hamburger Is Going to Cost You.

5. Prior monitoring data showed screwworm expanding northward; Grand Challenge launched January 21, 2026; 226 applications requesting $664 million; 40 projects funded at $105 million: USDA, USDA Announces New World Screwworm Grand Challenge; USDA APHIS, USDA Invests in Projects to Strengthen New World Screwworm Preparedness and Response.

6. First U.S. case June 3, 2026; 26 cases, 21 quarantined Texas counties; New Mexico case; Texas livestock movement restrictions: KXAN Austin, MAP: Where have New World screwworm cases been reported in Texas?; Texas Animal Health Commission, New World Screwworms.

7. Moore Air Force Base facility at one one-hundredth of required eradication capacity; full-scale domestic facility not ready until 2027: Common Dreams, Screwworm Parasite ‘No Longer Contained in Texas’.

8. U.S. cattle herd at 75-year low; beef and veal prices up 12.9 percent year over year in May; rancher loss estimate $735–745 million annually: Yahoo Finance, Beef prices hit record high as fear over screwworm outbreak lingers; KXAN Austin, MAP: Where have New World screwworm cases been reported in Texas?.