The United States has, for 70 years, been fighting a continuous aerial war against the New World screwworm, a parasite that eats animals alive: cow, pig, deer, dog, even human. (Its scientific name, C. hominivorax, translates to “man-eater.”) Larvae of the parasitic fly chew through flesh, transforming small nicks into big, gruesome wounds. But in the 1950s, the U.S. Department of Agriculture laid the groundwork for a continent-wide assault. Workers raised screwworms in factories, blasted them with radiation until they were sterile, and dropped the sterile adult screwworms by the millions—even hundreds of millions—weekly over the U.S., then farther south in Mexico, and eventually in the rest of North America.
The sterile flies proceeded to, well, screw the continent’s wild populations into oblivion, and in 2006, an invisible barrier was established at the Darién Gap, the jungle that straddles the Panama-Colombia border, to cordon the screwworm-free north off from the south. 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 never-ending battle kept the threat of screwworms far from America.
But in 2022, the barrier was breached. Cases in Panama—mostly in cattle—skyrocketed from dozens a year to 1,000, despite ongoing drops of sterile flies. The parasite then began moving northward, at first slowly and then rapidly by 2024, which is when I began getting alarmed emails from those following the situation in Central America. As of this month, the parasite has advanced 1,600 miles through eight countries to reach Oaxaca and Veracruz in Mexico, with 700 miles left to go until the Texas border. The U.S. subsequently suspended live-cattle imports from Mexico.
Central America is shaped like a funnel with a long, bumpy tail that reaches its skinniest point in Panama. Back in the day, the USDA helped pay for screwworm eradication down to Panama out of not pure altruism but economic pragmatism: Establishing a 100-mile screwworm barrier there is cheaper than creating one at the 2,000-mile U.S.-Mexico border. Even after screwworms began creeping up the tail of the funnel recently, the anti-screwworm campaign had one last good chance of stopping them at a narrow isthmus in southern Mexico—after which the funnel grows dramatically wider. It failed. The latest screwworm detections in Oaxaca and Veracruz are just beyond the isthmus.
Gold thing we have the most incompotent administration in history to deal with this one.
The USDA was certainly not spared the doge axe, they closed offices all along what will soon be the battlefront in this war.
The brainworm is calling its allies
ahh yes the Pestilence is in good form but my money is on famine, even though a parlay on war and death together has a big payday. Make your bets folks, scared money don’t make money.
There was once a writing prompts story on reddit. The fifth horseman called Kyle. If anyone can, please repost it here. It was very good.
I vote for him.
Think I found it The prompt itself called him Kyle so not sure which response you had in mind.
This one is the top comment:
Death was the oldest. Since time immemorial, people have died and they have come to him. Mankind fights an endless war against him. Though they may have succeeded in stifling his actions, Death is patient. He knows that in the end, all things come to him.
Pestilence was Death’s brother. He brought plague upon the lands. Staining the Earth black with disease and blight. His method of bringing people to his brother was slow and excruciating. However, mankind have begun to stave him off. Disease was beaten by technology and he increasingly faded into irrelevance.
Famine was as old as Death and pre-dated the birth of mankind. He worked with Pestilence to target the source of man’s strength, his food and fuel. He destroyed crop and rotted grain. Starvation and a slow path to Death awaited those afflicted by him. However, man stood strong against him. They developed methods to create a surplus of food, too much for Famine to destroy. They developed methods to deflect his hand so that he may no longer afflict the source of man’s strength. Thus, Famine, like Pestilence, faded into irrelevance.
War was the youngest. He was smart and cunning. He channeled man’s strength against themselves. Conflict and strife became the grounds for which man displayed his strength. Efficient in work, he brought many to Death. However after his most brilliant work, where War embroiled the world twice over, mankind caught on to his cunning. Man made laws and grew to depend on each other. Though they may never fully quell War’s influence, they made sure he would never afflict the world so spectacularly ever again.
Death was unhappy. Mankind had defeated his brothers and impeded his work. In his impatience and anger, he consulted his 5th brother, Kyle.
Kyle was a strange fellow amongst the brothers. He was quiet, lazy and seemed to care little for Death’s work. He decided that his own birthname was too tedious to pronounce and opted for an easier name. Gaelic in origin, “Kyle” meant “narrow” a strange name for a Horseman to take on.
“Help me Kyle. My brothers are defeated. Mankind may one day defeat me as well. Please help out just this once.” Kyle said nothing and merely nodded. He then disappeared off to perform his work.
As Death sat around his bedridden brothers, a miracle occured. Pestilence finger twitched and he his hands grew fleshy. Disease once again spread around the world. No longer as powerful as he once was, but alive once again.
Famine groaned and began to sit upright. Once again, crops wilted and people starved. Famine however, felt something amiss, some of his work was…voluntary. Mankind began to starve itself.
War rose from his bed with new found strength. The gears of conflict shook off their rust and began to turn once again. Innocents die in battle again, widows gained and fathers lost. Misguided soldiers die under authority’s whims.
“You revived our brothers Kyle. How did you do it?” Asked Death, impressed with Kyle’s work.
"I am Kyle, “narrow”, the fourth of the Horsemen. Born with humanity but before War. My influence appeared when the first man decided that he did not need his tribe to survive. Narrow are the minds of humans.
Humans defeated disease with miracle cures. Now some fear that those cures are harmful to them. Let them face Pestilence’s wrath.
Humans defeated Famine through piling resources and modifying crop. Now they hoard but never give. They let their breathren starve. Now they feel that excess of food is sin. They willing starve themselves of their source of strength to meet society’s whims. Let them suffer by Famine’s hand.
Humans defeated War through tolerance, diplomacy and restraint. Now they turn intolerant and unleash violence against those not of their own group. They justify their “Holy Wars” with the blood of innocents. Violence begets violence, vengeance for innocent blood spilled is carried out by the sword. Let them spiral down to oblivion, guided by War.
Narrow are the minds of humans. They do not think before they act. They believe what they want to believe and ignore what they don’t.
I am Ignorance. Until mankind is capable of defeating me, they can never truly destroy the Horsemen."
That’s the one! Thanks.
Shouldn’t it be “he consulted his 4th brother”? Unless there’s one we don’t know about… yet.
As scary as the article makes screworms look, that thing doing the calling is way scarier.
Oh, and the worm that died inside its brain once too.
This explains everything going on in the world
Turns out the worms don’t care about borders, and we shouldn’t have stopped at an imaginary line to save a few bucks.
It was a very well run and thought out practical plan, it was also cut by doge in breeding season.
RFK Jr “Yall hear a new worm just dropped! Gawd damn gotta get me one!” (Insert jackhammered freak shake voice)
you are the first person that I’ve seen to finally mention his voice. Seriously, what the fuck is wrong with his entire vocal box?? How can a person, any person, listen to RFK Jr for any period of time, and think to himself “This person seems to know a lot about health”???
It’s the worms talking for him. He’s like that guy from Nightmare before Christmas.
If you do heroine for 15 years like RFK jr did then you’ll suffer actual brain damage which will make you sound like that. Spasmodic dysphonia my ass, maybe shouldn’t have taken all that H eh? His brain worm was keeping the lights on, that dude gave way better advice than the human taco shell that is RFK jr
Rather go back to the bird flu please.
Don’t worry fam we got the best team on this situation with the best leadership…and…oh shit never mind.
Just in time for the new Kurtzgesagt video about them
there’s also a more in-depth video by tom scott on a similar type of problem with an almost identical solution
There is already one or you’re expecting one soon?
Someone posted it down below. I just hadn’t seen that comment, yet. Thank you for providing a link!
Anybody who wants more info on this can watch this video https://youtu.be/zxq60I5RSW8
Ooh here she comes… Watch out boys, she’ll chew you up!
She only comes out at night, though.
Hey Canadians, you guys still have science up there, right? I got a two-four of Molson or Labatt for ya if you can lend your continental neighbors a hand. Don’t do it for the US, but help out Mexico eh?
Go suck a dick, really- we have been shouting for about 25 years that exactly this was going to happen and you told us “fuck off, you’re America’s hat”
Eh, I’m from Detroit, we drink Canadian beer and would never speak ill of our southern neighbors. Heck, I grew up watching Hockey Night on CBC and listening to 89x. Can’t speak for the rest of the country though.
But for real, these critters sound scary, and apparently we’re all out of science. Or any sort of common sense. Yeah, we’re fucked.
You really are Canadian. That was more polite than we deserved.
Why you mad at Mexico?
Please no
You guys are screwed
it will make sense when the way we have treated animals undoes us completely. like a trail of kerosene straight from fire plains to our front doors.
Its important to note this fly has existed for millions of years laying its eggs in the flesh of mammals in the Americas, and that this has little to do with how we treat animals
obviously this is an ancient organism, but the fuel for it to ravage has never existed on this planet at this scale, it’s a tinderbox of living tissue.
Plus we’re changing the climate to encourage its migration north.
Oh no, anyway
