Threat of a devastating pest is knocking at our door

There’s no doubt that an introduction of New World screwworm, which is advancing northward from Central America and through Mexico, would have a devastating impact on America’s livestock, wildlife and people.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture states the screwworm “threatens over $100 billion in U.S. economic activity tied to the cattle and livestock industry alone.”

Many of us were unaware of the severe danger the New World screwworm presents to our country until U.S. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins first closed the border to livestock imports from Mexico.

She first did this last November following an announcement by Mexico that the screwworm was detected in Mexico’s southern region.

We’ve learned much since then, including that neither Central America, Mexico nor the United States is presently capable of mounting an effective eradication strategy against the pest.

The laboratory production and subsequent release into the population of sterile male screwworm flies is currently the best-known strategy for the pest’s eradication.

But the only laboratory presently producing sterile male flies is in Panama, and it cannot produce enough flies to cover the entire region from Panama to the United States.

Both Mexico and the United States are ramping up efforts to begin production of sterile screwworm flies, but the proposed laboratories are not expected to begin production for another year in Mexico and another two to three years in the United States.

That means we must double down on the science-based methods currently available to prevent the pest from entering the United States.

The most important of these science-based methods is to maintain a strict ban on the importation of livestock from Mexico, as this would help prevent the introduction of the screwworm into the United States through livestock movement, and it would discourage the northward movement of livestock within Mexico in anticipation of being exported to the United States.

Another method is to maintain traps and a vigorous surveillance system to determine the screwworm’s pattern of movement so resources can be directed where they are most needed.

Yet another measure is to identify all the possible transmission routes that could carry the screwworm into the United States, including human travel, and then implement mitigation measures to reduce those risks.

For any of these methods to be effective, the government, U.S. livestock producers and livestock veterinarians must work as partners by sharing timely and accurate information and regularly communicating to assess progress.

This means there must be full transparency and trust between the government, state and local animal health officials, and the livestock producers who bear the greatest risk should the pest enter the United States.

Unfortunately, a breach of transparency and trust between the government and the public was made evident by Reuters, which broke the story about a human case of New World screwworm that was detected on Aug. 4, but not revealed to the public until Reuters’ Aug. 24 investigative article.

Worse, the Reuters article indicates that while the information about the U.S. case was withheld from the public for weeks — including from veterinarians instrumental in surveilling for the pest and from livestock producers most at risk — the information had been secretly leaked to a select group of industry insiders.

The leaked information indicated the case involved a person traveling from Central America to Maryland.

That the government would, as the Reuters report indicates, leak market-sensitive information to only a small group of industry insiders, but withhold such information from all other stakeholders, particularly when the entire livestock industry and related financial markets remain apprehensive regarding the government’s ability to prevent the pest’s introduction, is unconscionable.

We don’t yet know if any additional mitigation measures have been implemented to prevent any further human transmission of the pest into the United States.

Also disturbing is the fact that the secret communication sent to the select group of industry insiders informed them that the beef industry has requested Texas A&M economist David Anderson to quickly write an industry impact report for Secretary Rollins on the impacts to the industry of the border closure to Mexican cattle.

So, we should expect there will soon be a push to prematurely reopen the border despite the ongoing health risks based on whatever findings the economist makes regarding the economic impact of the United States’ overreliance on cattle from foreign countries.

R-CALF USA has asked for an investigation into the circumstances surrounding the cover-up of the human case of New World screwworm and the establishment of a New World Screwworm Task Force to prevent future cover-ups and to ensure available resources are being allocated properly to prevent the introduction of this devastating pest into the United States.