A red state official ripped the Trump administration for how it mishandled a dangerous parasite now spreading fear.
Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller said on CNN that he started talking to the White House and Agriculture Sec. Brooke Rollins “for the first time” recently about New World Screwworm, despite giving them information about how to mitigate it much sooner.
Miller was talking about killing the screwworm using fly bait and then sterile flies, and said that the Agriculture Department ignored his calls to deploy it sooner.
“At the USDA, they knew about it. It’s not some trial. It’s not some pilot program,” Miller said. “They launched it, used it, I think six to eight different times. And it worked perfectly every time they used it in the ’70s and ’80s.”
Screwworm can spread “pretty fast,” Miller warned. The flesh-eating parasite is mostly a threat to cattle and the price of beef, CNN previously noted. The first U.S. livestock case in decades was detected on Wednesday, according to CNN reporting.
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