Sunday, September 13, 2026 Evidence-led medical research news
The First Cohort
Medical research, with the receipts

screwworm

4 stories tagged "screwworm"

Infectious Disease

The FDA Is Fighting a Flesh-Eating Parasite We Eradicated in 1966 With a Flea Pill From 2000

Nitenpyram was approved in 2000 to kill fleas. It is now the emergency tool against a parasite the United States wiped out in 1966, after the sterile-fly barrier that kept the screwworm out was breached in 2023.

Infectious Disease

For Sixty Years the Screwworm Was Gone. It's Back in Texas, and the FDA Reached for Its COVID-Era Emergency Powers.

The flesh-eating fly the US wiped out in 1966 has crossed the southern border into Texas, and Washington's answer leans on the same emergency law it used for COVID drugs, this time to slap an emergency label on Zoetis's best-selling dog pill.

Drugs & FDA

The Screwworm America Eradicated With Sterile Flies Is Back, and This Time Washington Also Reached for an Emergency-Authorized Chemical

Dicyclanil, an Australian sheep-blowfly chemical with mouse liver tumors in its toxicology file, is now cleared for cattle, swine, goats and wildlife under section 564, the same emergency-use power heavily used for pandemic countermeasures.

Infectious Disease

The FDA Put an Emergency Label on a Zoetis Dog Pill for a Screwworm America Erased in 1966 Without a Single Drug

The sterile-fly barrier that kept the flesh-eating screwworm out of America for sixty years gave way, and Washington's answer has been a run of emergency drug authorizations, the newest for a Zoetis dog pill whose maker's own release cites no efficacy data against the parasite.