Screwworm Larva Feed on Living Flesh
Two federal trackers, one outbreak, and no owner closing the gap.
“Only the paranoid survive.” — Andy Grove
Ranchers would rather hide a screwworm case than report one. Seven weeks later, confirmed cases are up nearly eightfold.
THE SIGNAL
When this story first broke, the United States had just five confirmed New World screwworm cases, all in Texas and New Mexico. Secretary Rollins criticized Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller after he suggested some ranchers might treat an infected animal themselves rather than report it.
The outbreak didn’t slow down. It kept growing. By early July, USDA had confirmed 32 cases. Less than two weeks later, Texas was reporting 39 cases, 38 in Texas and one in New Mexico. Then another problem emerged. The CDC’s own situation update listed 37 domestically acquired animal cases. Two federal agencies were tracking the same outbreak, yet they weren’t reporting the same number.
THE FAILURE POINT
The failure point was not acting on the warning. In June Rollins attending a press conference defended Miller’s credibility instead of addressing the problem. The failure point now is that nothing happened. Whatever the real infection rate is, the confirmed number was never the constraint.
This is interesting, decision judgement. Someone on LinkedIn had responded to one of my posts and mentioned this term. It applies very well here. It was a choice to not act on the warning
SIGNAL WITHIN THE SIGNAL
I have a few regular readers of my newsletter, so you are probably familiar with a few terms I write about: Norman’s Law, Signal Compression, and Norman’s Gap.
This is an example of Norman’s Law, when external pressure exceeds internal regulation, instability follows.
It’s difficult to hide bad news and manage it well. When a leader is focused on looking good you might stop focusing on the facts. In this case you can see the outcome in the data. Here we have two government agencies reporting different numbers, this is not good. This is what instability looks like.
Worth checking where your own team sits on that same gap before assuming it's someone else's problem.
Score your gap →
BEHAVIOR UNDER PRESSURE
This article is not really about the screwworm but how organizations respond when reality changes. The leaders did not change their position as the numbers got worse. They kept reassuring people instead of communicating that conditions had changed. Meanwhile, Mexico and Canada treated the U.S. data with open suspicion. Canada banned Texas-origin cattle within days of the first case. Mexico halted most U.S. livestock imports outright.
SYSTEM DRIVER - MOS
When we think of a management operating system, data drives or it should drive change. But here the problem identified is still here. This was not a problem that couldn’t be solved, it had a straightforward solution. Like all systems, design it so people tell the truth.
This leads into another term Ive coined, Signal Compression, the truth gets diluted as it moves through people, department or agencies.
A second gap has now surfaced on top of the first one. No single person was accountable for the number. This was never a compliance to process issues it was a leadership and system design issue.
LEADER DRIVER - INTERNAL OPERATING SYSTEM (IOS) - REGULATE
The evidence kept getting worse for five weeks.
They had multiple opportunities to rethink whether the current approach was working.
Instead of changing the system, they kept telling people everything was under control.
They responded with communication and not change. The problem was treated as bad news and not a systems issue.
IF YOU DO ONE THING TODAY
Do you trust your metrics? If not, you can’t trust your decisions. Data is only useful if its trusted and tells the truth.
Look at one metric or KPI everyone trusts to be the truth. Ask who owns it? A named owner is accountable for its accuracy.
If accountability is not clear, you don’t trust the data and your team is silent. You have a correction ahead of you.
Your team might be hedging. There is a list of reasons people will make the numbers look better:
Fear
Ego
Politics
Career pressure
Human bias
Groupthink
As a leader you need to ask, is there pressures that could cause our metrics to drift? Look at your system, does it allow data massaging to become corrupt?
PRESSURE / REGULATE
Pressure: 8.5 / Regulation: 2.6
Direction: the reporting problem remained the same as cases grew adding pressure.
FINAL SIGNAL
The screwworm kept spreading while the reporting problem remained.
CTA
Find out where your gap is before it costs you. Score your own gap here, takes about three minutes.
mosei.org/gap-diagnostic.html
SOURCES
CNBC
June 8, 2026. Texas Public Radio,
CDC, “New World Screwworm Outbreak” summary, updated July 28, 2026.
Wikipedia, “2026 United States New World Screwworm outbreak,”
CNN, “Flesh-eating screwworm has reached the US, a comeback driven by organized crime,” June 11, 2026.