Builders Movement

Follow Builders TX

Flesh-eating maggot arrives in Texas...

The New World Screwworm is back. Its larvae feed on living flesh, infecting livestock through open wounds and sometimes killing animals within weeks. After decades of eradication, it has reappeared near the Texas border.

The stakes are high. Texas is the nation's top cattle-producing state, and a major outbreak could cost producers around $1 billion a year while impacting the broader economy by nearly $4 billion.

The blame game started quickly. Some point to cuts in monitoring programs. Others point to border security failures and cattle smuggling. But many lawmakers agree on what matters now: stopping the spread.

Republicans and Democrats have joined forces to respond.
Lawmakers from both parties are backing efforts to expand sterile fly production and prevent a larger outbreak.

It may sound unusual, but sterile flies helped eliminate screwworms in the U.S. decades ago. Now officials are racing to scale that strategy up again.

A flesh-eating parasite isn't the issue anyone expected to bring people together. But it's a reminder that when the consequences are real and the stakes are shared, solving the problem can matter more than arguing about who's to blame.

Read the full story here: https://buildersmovement.org/2026/06/15/new-world-screwworm-texas/

We’re told the country can’t work together. But most of the time, it does. Just not where the cameras are.