“We defeated this pest before, and we will do it again,” said the department that spent the spring reducing its animal-disease workforce.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture confirmed this week the first case of New World screwworm in Texas since 1966, a flesh-eating parasite discovered in the umbilical wound of a three-week-old calf in Zavala County. The agency, which reduced animal-disease and public-health staffing last spring, called the situation serious but manageable and announced a response built around breeding and releasing hundreds of millions of sterilized flies.
“This is not a threat to our food supply,” Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said of the parasite, whose larvae feed on the living flesh of warm-blooded animals. “And there is no threat of mass infestation.”
The pest had been eradicated domestically for nearly sixty years. It advanced north through Mexico over the past year despite what officials described as months of warnings. A new $750 million production facility in Edinburg, announced alongside Gov. Greg Abbott, will be funded through the Commodity Credit Corporation, a Depression-era account that several Republican senators have moved to restrict, citing what their own bill calls its use as a slush fund.
The Plan to Beat the Screwworm Is More Flies
The eradication method, used successfully in the 1960s, involves raising sterilized male flies and releasing them to mate with wild females, which mate only once, producing eggs that never hatch. Officials are currently releasing roughly 100 million sterile flies a week across the region. The Edinburg facility, once operational, is expected to produce 300 million.
A department spokesman described the earlier staffing reductions as a modernization. It was one of several disease-prevention programs reshaped during a year of revised public-health priorities. Asked whether the modernization had affected readiness, officials reiterated that the United States had defeated the pest before.
A Five-Person Strike Team and a New Website
The administration characterized its response as a whole-of-government effort and launched a website, screwworm.gov, to centralize information. Rollins said a “phenomenal five-person strike team” of veterinarians and animal-health technicians had been deployed to South Texas.
Two members of the Texas congressional delegation released statements describing the facility as a long-standing personal priority. The statements were, in their operative paragraphs, identical.
What the New World Screwworm Means for Beef
Rollins called the New World screwworm a national security issue that “endangers our livestock industry and threatens the stability of beef prices.” Cattle futures were mixed.
Officials emphasized once more that the food supply is safe, noting that screwworm larvae do not infest meat. They feed only on the animal while it is still alive. Developing.
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