The latest figures from the USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service show 20 active domestic cases of New World screwworm – all in Texas. Would the Texas Department of Agriculture ever restrict cattle at shows and fairs if the outbreak worsened? Commissioner Sid Miller responds.
“No, I mean, this is not a contagious disease. It’s not spread by bacteria or airborne or anything like that. It’s spread by a fly laying an egg in an open wound. Open wounds are pretty visible. I mean, you can see those. You can detect if they have maggots in them. I mean, this is not something that’s going to slip by anybody. If your animal is infected with screwworms, first thing you’re going to do is smell it because it smells like rotten roadkill. I mean, I don’t know how to put it nicely, but that’s a pretty good description of it. So it doesn’t harm the food supply. You know, it’s not going to get into the food system. It’s, as far as keeping the stock shows open and rolling, that should not be a problem.”
He says individual livestock exhibitions already have precautions in place to mitigate the spread of diseases or parasites, not just New World screwworm.
“They always have restrictions. This is nothing new, but before you can, you know, bring an animal into one of those, they have to be examined by the veterinarian. You have to have a certificate of inspection. You have to take them to the vet, and the vet has to inspect them and give them a certificate of clean health. But that’s always the case. That’s not new just because of the screwworm. So, because of that, you know, if there was any infections, the health certificate would catch that.”
Commissioner Miller reminds us that state agriculture departments are in regular communication through national and regional associations, with frequent meetings and conference calls to share updates and coordinate their response.
For livestock exhibitors preparing for a show season, as concerns about New World screwworm continue, use the tools available to you to keep your animals safe.
“We have some great tools that we didn’t have in the 60s, 70s, and 80s. We have anti-parasitic drugs like ivermectin and Dectomax. So, you can treat your animals with that. It’ll give them like a 30-day protection. So that’s pretty easy to do. It’s something they’re probably already doing. You know, no one wants parasites inside their show animal. So, they’re probably on a routine basis already with one of those two drugs. So, if you’re using those, the likelihood of you getting a screwworm is next to zero.”
Earlier this month, Commissioner Miller called on the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to authorize the use of ivermectin in medicated livestock feed. He says Texas ranchers need every proven tool available to stop the screwworm outbreak. While he has not seen a response yet, he plans to put out another request to the Trump administration asking USDA to put a fly bait into use.
“Well, the USDA has proven science. Their own scientists proved up a fly bait to control the screwworm. It works very well, controls 80% on the low end, 95% on the high end. So far, they’ve been reluctant to use it. Even though it’s their own science, they created it. It worked extremely well in the 70s and 80s. It helped eradicate the screwworm at that time. So we’ve been working with the USDA, and they just, we just can’t get them to move on it.”
He explains what the fly bait is.
“The insecticide they use in the bait is still on the market. It’s in over 80 products that you can buy today off the shelf. It was in a pellet — pellets made from corn cobs. We still got lots of corn cobs. The lure in it, we have today, it’s actually an improved, they use something called Swarm Lure 2 in the 70s, 80s, but now we have Swarm Lure 5, which is a much better improved lure. So, we have all the tools. We have all the ingredients. Nothing’s changed. It’s the same fly we had in the 70s and 80s — genetically hasn’t changed. There’s no resistance because we haven’t been using this insecticide on them. So, it’s kind of a no-brainer. It’s very disappointing that the USDA has the tools to stop this in its tracks. We could actually stop it when we had it bottled up in Southern Mexico, and they chose to use the sterile fly method only.”