As floodwaters linger across parts of Texas, state leaders are warning that the wet conditions could worsen the spread of the New World screwworm, a parasitic fly that spreads quickly and mostly targets warm-blooded animals.<\/p>\n
Texas Agricultural Commissioner Sid Miller said the state is now dealing with more than 40 cases and criticized the federal response. \u201cWe\u2019re up to over 40 cases now. It continues to what we\u2019re doing is not working. USDA has failed in my opinion …\u201d Miller said.<\/p>\n
Miller, who has been leading efforts to stop the outbreak, said flooding and the moisture left behind can make it easier for the screwworm to multiply because of how it develops after eggs drop from an animal. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe moisture actually helps the screwworm because those eggs fall out of the animal onto the ground, and they need a little bit of. They have to burrow into the ground, so if it\u2019s moist, it\u2019s very easy, very helpful to the screwworm….\u201d Miller said.<\/p>\n
Miller did not say whether any new cases have been linked directly to the floods, but he is urging the U.S. Department of Agriculture to do more to stop the spread.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As floodwaters linger across parts of Texas, state leaders are warning that the wet conditions could worsen the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":346320,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[27,29,28],"class_list":["post-384654","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/384654","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=384654"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/384654\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/346320"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=384654"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=384654"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=384654"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}