The USDA Secretary stepped up to a microphone to reassure Americans that screwworms—parasitic larvae that burrow into living flesh and eat their host from the inside out—won't interrupt your Chipotle bowl. Food supply secure. Texas cattle operations continuing as planned. The markets can rest easy knowing a flesh-eating pest outbreak is being handled with the same strategic playbook Eisenhower used in 1959.
The solution? Release millions of sterile male screwworms to mate with fertile females and produce no offspring. Biological warfare through forced celibacy. The government spent decades perfecting a program that essentially cockblocks an entire species into extinction, and now they're dusting it off because some flies in Texas decided to start eating cows again.
This is the part where retail traders check their agricultural ETF holdings and panic-Google whether livestock futures correlate with screwworm fertility rates. They'll find a Reddit thread. Someone will suggest going long on insect sterilization technology. Another guy will post his loss porn from shorting cattle in 2019. Nobody will mention that the USDA already solved this problem before your grandfather bought his first savings bond.
The Secretary didn't specify how many sterile bugs they plan to release. Millions, presumably. Enough to outnumber the horny ones. Imagine being a fertile male screwworm right now, watching wave after wave of government-funded virgins flood your territory, stealing your mates and producing nothing but disappointment. That's basically what happened to day traders when Robinhood removed the buy button, except the screwworms didn't deserve it.
Your ribeye is safe. The USDA said so. They've got a freezer full of neutered flies and a plan older than the Cuban Missile Crisis. Sleep tight knowing the only thing getting screwed here is the parasites.
Photo by Perry Merrity II on Unsplash
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