alt Hacker NewsThis is why a competent and well staffed bureaucracy is so important. Screwworm is really easy to eliminate by flooding their population with males sterilized by radiation (females only mate once in their lifetime so their population falls off fast). There are factories in Latin America already set up to do so at large scale, all it would take is a contract with the USDA to guarantee enough supply for the states.
Edit: Hah, I get to eat my words. Turns out USDA and APHIS have been trying to fly planes over Mexico to release the sterile flies, but the Mexican government has been restricting the flight days and denying landing permission, which has hampered the program. Looks like the Mexican bureaucracy is the one failing here, and USDA/APHIS might be running pre-emptive releases in the US (but I can't find a source on that). They just agreed to lift those restrictions and cooperate more at the end of April.
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It was partially the new tariffs that put a stop to the program and the April 30 agreement puts an end to tariffs on equipment associated with screwworm treatment program.
> There are factories in Latin America already set up to do so at large scale, all it would take is a contract with the USDA to guarantee enough supply for the states.
According to the article the cases are in Mexico, so I don’t know that “Latin American origin” is a silver bullet.
That competent and well-staffed bureaucracy is important also because they patiently work through these problems with their counterparts on the other side of the the Rio Grande.
Except they got fired, so now there's no one to do that work. We got what we wanted. God help us all 'cause no one else is.
> their population falls off fast
Superexponentially fast.
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> This is why a competent and well staffed bureaucracy is so important.
Try: "This is why a competent and well staffed science institute is so important."
Bureaucracy not required.
Good job the US is on such good terms with Latin America at the moment