Ms_J_ 🇨🇦👖☀️

[Terry Moran 🇺🇸 @TerryMoran]

We’re all supposed to pretend this isn’t happening a lot?

How does this make us look to the rest of the world?

[Ms_J_ 🇨🇦👖☀️ @_Ms_J]

@bruce_arthur Quebec saw an exodus leading up to the vote and soon after. It took decades to recover.

[Dale Chu @Dale_Chu]

How social media hooked kids at school, according to internal documents:

📈 Meta: Paid 14 yo “ambassadors” to push IG
👻 Snap: Targeted “under the desk” class time
🎥 YouTube: Pushed comedy clips during math lessons
📱 TikTok: Blocked efforts to mute school hour alerts

[epistemiccrisis @goldstar002]

#greenscreen This video is my opinion 🤓 #maga #trump #health

[Ms_J_ 🇨🇦👖☀️ @_Ms_J]

@TheJasonPugh @stevenmackinnon Childish

[Jeremy Konyndyk @JeremyKonyndyk]

DOGE didn't make a dent in the deficit, but it did bring back screwworm and enable a historically large new Ebola outbreak, so it's not like they didn't achieve *anything*

[Nomadic Warriors for Pritzker⚔️ @Nomads4Pritzker]

So, I've worked in the beef industry. I have a fairly detailed knowledge of beef markets, the supply chain, parasites and parasiticides, etc. Suffice it to say, this is a nightmare scenario, but one we've known was coming since at least 2022.

New World Screwworm was eradicated from North and Central America in the mid-90's. The US gov't (APHIS) funded a program of screwworm drops, where they bred sterile males so that extant populations couldn't reproduce and move northwards. But in 2022 NWS jumped the Darien gap and started moving northwards once again. It's most likely that they came undetected on livestock brought alongside migrants fleeing political instability in South and Central America. Elon Musk/DOGE, of course, cut several monitoring programs that would have detected this exact scenario. The screwworm drops are still funded, but the monitoring programs are what have been cut - a stupid move if there ever was one.

A serious Central/South America policy would have worked hand-in-hand with CA/SA governments to help contain this, but we've never had a serious policy towards South America, not during the Biden years, and especially not under Trump. The USDA broke ground on a sterile screwworm facility in Texas... last month. I worry it's too little, too late.

Screwworm is so dangerous because, unlike other fly larvae, they lay eggs and feed on living flesh. So something like a small scratch (or even bug bite) can quickly becomes infested, and the larvae will burrow into the flesh, growing the wound and attracting more screwworm. They don't only parasitize cattle, but will also feed on wildlife, domestic pets, even humans. Since they have detected screwworms in domesticated cattle right now, it's likely that there is a wild reservoir as well. We can quarantine herds and pets, but we can't quarantine deer and armadillos. They will move, and so will the NWS.

Under normal circumstances, cattle are moved around - a lot. Calves will be sent to stockers through their adolescence, then shipped to feedlots for finishing. A lot of calving operations (like 70%) are small, and small-time producers don't always catch parasite infestations. Cattle moved in-state don't require a certificate of veterinary inspection, so it's easy for an infested animal to be moved without being noticed. Animals crossing state lines do need a CVI, but Texas has such an enormous cattle population (something like 13 million head) that as goes Texas, so goes the nation.

Fortunately, we have a lot of drugs that treat NWS. The FDA has issued several emergency use authorizations in the last year or so. But every input raises the price of beef, and treatment only makes a difference if producers catch an infestation early. If an infestation spreads unnoticed on a large feedlot, it can hit hard, both in terms of cattle that have to be killed, and treatments that then have to be deployed. Producers will spend days at a time running cattle through the chute, inspecting them and applying parasiticides. It costs a lot of money, which is then passed on to the consumer.

What does that mean for you? Beef is a commodity, and just because there's no NWS up here in Illinois doesn't mean that prices won't skyrocket - and they will skyrocket. US herd size is already at record lows, and this will result in culls. Consumer prices also run 18-24 months behind, which means that shocks to the supply chain now are still going to be felt by consumers in 2028.

It's hard to say if our government will be able to muster an effective response - though I don't trust our current administration, which can't even throw a 250th anniversary party, to be able to deal with an ecological issue of this magnitude. It doesn't help that our current USDA secretary is a lawyer and think-tank creature. I don't much trust the state government of Texas either. The industry has also taken the workforce of large animal veterinarians for granted - a monopoly/market power issue that I just can't get in to here.

For me, it comes back to our federal government having an incoherent policy on Central and South America. We knew what was coming, we know what's going to happen, but we cut the program meant to prevent this scenario. Instead of taking those countries seriously as partners, the government has been stupid and domineering.

Here's the kicker: this is what the industry voted for. They might scream, they might get bailed out, but all that means is that you, the consumer, are going to be paying more for beef, plus whatever bailout gets shoveled their way. Until the industry accepts that they are part of a larger system; that they cannot eternally privatize the gains and publicize the losses of beef production; that they need to consider sustainability and stewardship in the management of their operations, this is only going to keep happening. Eventually, they may find that there is very little goodwill for them among the public, and people will decide that a Brazilian ribeye tastes just as good as one from Texas.

[Stephano🍁Barberis @HelloStephano]

Cons don’t like Canada.

[John Jackson @hissgoescobra]

Why the gangsta lean? This is Weekend at Bernie's stuff.

[Everything Price Sufferer (but especially eggs) @agraybee]

From 1966 to 2025 we dropped sterile flies over South America that ate screwworm and thus prevented them from spreading, but the le epic efficient cracked coders at DOGE thought this was a silly waste of the ~0 dollars it cost us.

[Ms_J_ 🇨🇦👖☀️ @_Ms_J]

@StateDept As a Canadian, the US crusade against universities, talk shows, news, buying up social media seems like that to the rest of the world.

[Ms_J_ 🇨🇦👖☀️ @_Ms_J]

@Reil76 I agree. I won’t waste my time showing it to my class

[Harshi Peiris, Ph.D. @Neuroscope_mp]

🚨 BREAKING Scientists may have just cracked the code on Alzheimer's and Parkinson's — WITH ONE PILL.

A drug called Buntanetap was just published in a peer-reviewed journal with Phase 3 data.
Phase 3 means that we are on the verge of FDA approval.

It targets the ROOT CAUSE of both diseases simultaneously.

Here's what you need to know 🧵👇
#Alzheimers #Parkinsons

[Ms_J_ 🇨🇦👖☀️ @_Ms_J]

@nexta_tv Time for Canada to reconsider the access highway

[The Lincoln Project @ProjectLincoln]

The Trump administration has been telling you they had screwworm under control for months. Now, it's here.

What happened? Trump and DOGE slashed funding for screwworm monitoring programs.

And the entire GOP let them. Thank them for today's new hell they unleashed on you.

[Alex Raufoglu @ralexdc]

WATCH!!! @RepMoskowitz nails it!

“The algorithm is full of what's going on in the Middle East, but the Ukraine-Russia war — nothing, no images, no stories about the kids, no stories about the hundreds of thousands of people that are dead. Why is it?”

👇

[Dept. of Agriculture @USDA]

A case of NWS may have been detected in South Texas. The sample is now at USDA's National Veterinary Services Laboratories (NVSL) in Ames, lowa for confirmatory testing. We will provide updates the moment results are available.

We have already activated personnel on the ground and are working with local partners.

What you can expect from us is transparency, candor, and most important — action.

https://t.co/MrhuQr9UbN

[kira 👾 @kirawontmiss]

Before AI we had Zach King

[Turnbull @cturnbull1968]

I’ve been talking about this for a long time.

This is how Bezos has a $500M yacht on a $82,000 a year salary.

Thank you @RubenGallego

[Shaun Pinner @ShaunPinnerUA]

Literally the Russians stole my home, killed my friends and moved somebody else into our property.

A comment like that gets pushed by the algorithm to generate 16k views and 1.5k likes.

I’ll barely get over 1000 if Trump or Putin is mentioned in a negative context.