Lessons from the Sterile Fly Playbook for a New Screwworm Outbreak

The piece recounts how the U.S. defeated screwworms in 1966 via the Sterile Insect Technique—mass-releasing sterile flies developed by Edward Knipling and Raymond Bushland—after decades of outbreaks and early missteps, including Florida and Southwest eradication efforts and cross-border cooperation with Mexico; it warns that today’s re-emergence demands large-scale, preventative action and renewed funding for monitoring to avoid repeating past economic and agricultural losses.