Well, I guess we're screwed

Beef prices, already high, are heading steeply upward. You can thank two men for this: Donald Trump and Elon Musk.

The U.S. cattle herd was already at its lowest level in 75 years, thanks to a combination of drought and tariffs. Herd sizes have been declining for years. Then, thanks to Trump's unpredictable on-off-on tariffs against anyone and everyone, most countries in the world lost interest in American beef. That wasn't helped by deregulation that allows practices unacceptable in many countries and fewer inspectors that makes the quality of American beef downright scary.

Then Musk chimed in. Under his chaotic leadership, DOGE killed the programs that we designed to fight the spread of bird flu in cattle. Oh, and he also destroyed USAID, an action that's already led to hundreds of thousands of deaths in nations that once counted on the United States for food or medical assistance.

But that's all overseas, right? Nothing USAID did affects us here in the states, right?

Ah, well, as it turns out, one of the 5,300 programs and grants destroyed when Musk took out his glittery chainsaw was the inspection system that had held in check something called the New World Screwworm. The funding was eliminated, and 25% of the staff that had been involved in a program to hold back the screwworm were fired.

Screwworms are the larva of a parasitic fly. The fly plants its eggs in openings or small wounds. When the maggots hatch, they "screw" themselves ever deeper into muscle and organs, causing infections, inflammation, and tremendous pain. Animals are usually the ones who suffer, but screwworms can also infect humans. Those infections are relatively rare, but can be fatal.

The United States was freed of New World screwworms over multiple decades as the first successful example of a very clever strategy. By exposing male screwworm flies to radiation, they can be made sterile. Since female screwworm flies mate once in their lives, flooding an area with sterile males ups the chances that there will be no offspring. Do this enough over the area where screwworms breed, and the screwworms can be eliminated.

And they were. The program continued to push the screwworm south. In 1991, Mexico was declared screwworm free. Belize followed in 1994. El Salvador came the next year. Then Nicaragua and Honduras.

“The USDA, over a 50-year period, succeeded in eradicating this fly all the way down to the Panama-Colombia border,” said [Professor Max Scott]. “It was a lot of effort by a lot of people, but it’s largely unknown, unfortunately, because it was a big success story."

This program not only saved animals—and humans—from immense suffering, it's a big reason why the cost of beef in the United States was 3.5x cheaper in 2000 than in 1960 (when adjusted for inflation).

Then Trump and Musk decided that this was another silly international waste of money.

The funding [for screwworm monitoring] was axed days before the U.S. ended a temporary suspension of cattle imports from Mexico, meaning livestock was allowed to cross the border without any of the monitoring previously funded by the U.S. Agency of International Development (USAID). 

Agriculture officials and cattle industry leaders raised alarm about the cuts at the time and, for the last several months, pleaded with the government to step in as they monitored screwworm infections moving north through Mexico—but they were ignored, Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller told NBC News. 

On June 2, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins poo-pooed concerns that the screwworm fly could be found anywhere close to the U.S. border following reports that it had been spotted in Northern Mexico.

Exactly one day later, the USDA confirmed the first U.S. case of screwworm infection in a cow found in Zavala County, Texas. On June 5, a calf in the same area was found to be infected. On June 8, a cow, a goat, and a dog were reported as infected. All of these were in different areas than the first two infections. The dog lives in New Mexico

Beef prices already surged to $7 a pound in April. That's a 21% increase from last year and a 75% increase since 2020.

With declining numbers of cows, drought getting worse, and a roadkill-eating Health Secretary helping to drive a fad for a protein-heavy diet, the future of U.S. beef prices already looked frightening. Now, as Forbes reports, screwworms may send prices soaring even higher. Fighting the screwworm is likely to mean quarantines around infected farms and limit the movement of cattle to feedlots. And that's the good outcome.

… a major screwworm outbreak would cause more calves to die, adult cattle to lose weight and limit what animals are suitable for sale, meaning fewer pounds of beef reaching the market. 

But don't worry. Republicans have already worked out their plan to address this problem.

“This is another thing we can thank Joe Biden for,” Senator Roger Marshall told NewsMax. “That when millions of people came out of Central America, they brought this screwworm with them. It was on their pets, maybe on their flesh as well.”

Apparently, there is no time limit on blaming Biden. It's the cure-all for every Republican ill.

Enjoy your $20 burger.