Screwworm Flies Return to Texas, and the Beef Is Yours Now

New World screwworm cases have been confirmed in Texas cattle country, delivering a predictable consequence to the ranching constituencies that most enthusiastically supported the budget and regulatory conditions enabling this resurgence.

Multiple New World screwworm cases were confirmed Monday in Texas, alarming cattle ranchers across the state.
The parasite, which had been eradicated from the U.S. decades ago, is now advancing northward through a containment gap.
Federal and state officials are scrambling to mount a response amid resource constraints critics warned about in advance.
Texas beef prices are expected to face upward pressure as ranchers absorb new inspection and treatment costs.
The affected constituency includes ranching operations that broadly backed deregulatory and budget-cutting platforms at both state and federal levels.

The Leopards Eating People's Faces Party regrets to confirm that New World screwworm cases have been verified in Texas, and that the faces in question belong, in meaningful proportion, to the cattle-ranching constituency that has long and enthusiastically supported the platform.

As set out plainly in that platform: budgets would be reduced, regulatory infrastructure streamlined, and the general apparatus of federal agricultural oversight rendered leaner. The screwworm, a parasite whose larvae consume living tissue from the inside, apparently reviewed the same platform and found the conditions agreeable.

Texas ranchers now face the prospect of elevated monitoring costs, potential herd losses, and beef price volatility — consequences that agricultural entomologists, USDA program officers, and anyone who remembered the original 1966 eradication campaign had assessed as the predictable output of reduced investment in the sterile-fly barrier program.

The Party wishes to be clear: the leopards did not improvise. The screwworm performed exactly as described in its own literature, which has been publicly available since the Eisenhower administration. Our platform has not changed. The Party remains committed to the eating of faces and has no plans to revise this commitment in response to constituent feedback expressing surprise at its implementation.

State and federal officials are reported to be “ramping up containment efforts,” a phrase the Party notes is considerably more expensive after a ramp-down than before one. We extend our sincerest institutional sympathies to the cattle. They did not vote for any of this.