Food

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In Texas cattle country, ranchers brace for flesh-eating screwworms​

By Heather Schlitz, Cassandra Garrison and Elida Moreno / August 15, 20255:00 AM GMT-5
LIVE OAK COUNTY, TEXAS; TAPACHULA, MEXICO; PANAMA CITY -

Ranchers in central Mexico are discovering the dreaded fly’s maggots burrowed in their cattle for the first time in a generation, and a factory in Panama is losing a race against time to breed sterile flies, the most powerful tool to quell an outbreak.
Today, the parasitic flies are pushing northward from Central America again after being officially eradicated from the U.S. in 1966, threatening $1.8 billion in damage to Texas’ economy alone, according to a U.S. Department of Agriculture estimate. An outbreak could further elevate record-high beef prices by keeping more calves out of the U.S. cattle supply. ...
Despite stepped-up efforts, there are not enough sterile flies to stop them. ...

He was only eight years old in 1973, but fifth-generation Texas rancher Kip Dove remembers spending countless days trotting up to sick and dying cattle on horseback that year during the last major outbreak of flesh-eating screwworm. He carried a bottle of foul-smelling, tar-like medicine in his saddlebag and a holstered revolver to shoot any animals too far gone to treat.

https://www.reuters.com/world/texas-cattle-country-ranchers-brace-flesh-eating-screwworms-2025-08-15/

The attempt to suppress this outbreak by releasing sterile flies to crash their population has failed.

It's "supply & demand". As the ratio of available food diminishes in proportion to the consuming public, the price of food increases proportionally.

 

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The Vitamin Verdict​

The researchers concluded that multivitamins don’t reduce the risk for heart disease, cancer, cognitive decline (such as memory loss and slowed-down thinking) or an early death.
They also noted that in prior studies, vitamin E and beta-carotene supplements appear to be harmful, especially at high doses.

“Pills are not a shortcut to better health and the prevention of chronic diseases,” says Larry Appel, M.D., director of the Johns Hopkins Welch Center for Prevention, Epidemiology and Clinical Research.

Is There Really Any Benefit to Multivitamins?

A recent look at multivitamins by Johns Hopkins researchers shows that there’s no proof of benefit. Find out the one supplement deemed beneficial—and how others failed.

www.hopkinsmedicine.org

Alright.
So it's better to obtain all the required nutrients from a naturally, nutritionally complete diet.
And for those of us that have more to do each day than shop for fresh fruits and vegetables?

Reference Guide: Daily Values for Nutrients​

If a patient catches cold, and takes a few grams of Vitamin C by tablet, the benefit is placebo ? But if by citrus fruit, genuine nutritional benefit?

hmmm