No, Trump and Musk Didn't Eliminate the Screwworm Prevention Program — But Staffing Cuts Did Raise Real Concerns
“Trump and Musk eliminated or significantly reduced government programs that were responsible for keeping flesh-eating screwworms away from American farms”
The argument in brief
The claim that the Trump administration eliminated or significantly reduced programs keeping flesh-eating screwworms out of the US is an overstatement. The USDA's core eradication program remained operational, and the government even suspended Mexican cattle imports in May 2025 when screwworms were detected near the border. However, DOGE-related cuts to USDA staffing did raise legitimate concerns from agricultural experts about the agency's capacity to keep the program fully running.
Why it spread
The story felt airtight: visible, widely-covered government workforce cuts plus a viscerally frightening agricultural threat. People understandably connected the two dots. It also fits a broader pattern of watching for consequences from rapid federal downsizing, which makes the leap from 'staffing cuts happened' to 'this disaster is their fault' feel intuitive, even when the real relationship is more indirect.
The claim circulating online is that Trump and Elon Musk's DOGE cuts eliminated or gutted the government programs responsible for keeping New World Screwworm — a parasite that burrows into living flesh — out of American livestock. The verdict is partially false. The program was not eliminated, but staffing reductions created real, documented concerns about its future capacity.
The USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) runs a screwworm eradication program that works by releasing sterile flies from a facility in Panama, preventing the pest from establishing itself in the US. According to USDA APHIS records and Reuters reporting from May 2025, this program was still active. In fact, USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins suspended live cattle imports from Mexico that month after screwworm detections near the US border — a sign the monitoring infrastructure was working, not dismantled.
So where does the concern come from? It's legitimate. Federal News Network and Politico both reported that DOGE-related cuts reduced APHIS staffing broadly, and agricultural experts warned this could strain the agency's ability to fully staff the Panama facility and maintain border surveillance. The American Farm Bureau Federation echoed those capacity worries. These are real risks — just not the same as the program being eliminated.
The screwworm's advance toward the US border in 2025 was also driven by the parasite's own northward spread through Mexico, according to NPR's reporting and independent experts. Blaming that movement entirely on US staffing cuts gets the causation backwards, even if reduced capacity makes a response harder.
This kind of claim spreads because it collapses a complicated situation into a clean story: government cuts caused a monster bug to threaten American farms. The cuts are real, the threat is real, but the direct causal link is not. When you see headlines connecting DOGE cuts to a specific crisis, look for whether the program was actually ended or whether experts are warning about future risk — those are very different things.
Sources
- USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS)
The USDA APHIS screwworm eradication program, which releases sterile flies to prevent New World Screwworm from entering the US, remained operational. In May 2025, USDA temporarily suspended cattle imports from Mexico due to screwworm detections near the US border, demonstrating the program was actively monitoring threats.
- Reuters
In May 2025, USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins suspended live cattle imports from Mexico due to New World Screwworm detections, showing the monitoring and response infrastructure remained intact under the Trump administration.
- Government Executive / Federal News Network
DOGE-related cuts did affect USDA staffing broadly, including APHIS personnel, raising concerns among agricultural experts about capacity to maintain biosecurity programs including screwworm surveillance.
- Politico
Reports indicated that APHIS staff reductions created concerns about the agency's ability to fully staff the Panama-based sterile fly production facility and border monitoring operations, though the program itself was not formally eliminated.
- American Farm Bureau Federation
Farm Bureau acknowledged the screwworm threat was real and escalating in 2025, and expressed concern about USDA staffing capacity, but did not attribute the threat to elimination of the eradication program.
- NPR
NPR reporting noted that while the screwworm threat had advanced closer to the US border than in decades, experts attributed this to the parasite's northward spread in Mexico rather than to the elimination of US eradication programs, though staffing cuts raised capacity concerns.
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