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As cases of New World screwworm increase in Texas after parasitic flies were found in the U.S. early this month, the current administration has surged personnel to combat the threat and put $750 million into a new sterile fly facility in Texas that is supposed to be ready by next fall.
It also has placed the blame for the crisis at the feet of the Biden administration, criticism that former officials from that administration say is not just unhelpful, but untrue. They also have fired back with their own analysis of the situation, saying the Trump administration did not act quickly to maintain efforts to keep the fly in Mexico.
Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins has said, for example, that when she took over at USDA, there were only the equivalent of 10 full-time staff dedicated to battling the screwworm. That figure is now closer to 120, she says.
False, say four former senior administration officials, two of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity. They say dozens of personnel at APHIS were working the problem, both in the U.S. and Central America, and also mentioned work being done by Agricultural Research Service scientists.
“It's just very frustrating to hear the misinformation being provided, when pointing fingers is not going to help anybody right now,” said one of those officials. They said that the number of employees cited by Rollins is a vast underestimate.
“A lot of things were happening within the previous administration, and lots of people were involved,” they said, calling the estimate of 10 people “definitely false.”
“There was a lot being done, and the reality is that when the administration changed, we actually took some steps backwards,” that official said. One example was a delay in funding the conversion of a facility in Mexico to produce sterile flies.
Tom Vilsack (Agri-Pulse photo)
That deal was worked out in the Biden administration and shortly before the end of that administration, $21 million was dedicated from the Commodity Credit Corporation by former Ag Secretary Tom Vilsack for the work, these officials said.
But Vilsack held off on spending the money “out of a normal sense of comity,” said Kevin Shea, who was administrator of the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service from 2013 through 2023. Another senior administration official said the funding was delayed in part because Mexico had not submitted a plan for how to spend it.
Rollins announced the $21 million for Mexico in late May, about four months after her confirmation as secretary.
Vilsack himself told Agri-Pulse that it is not “accurate or true that we did nothing,” as Rollins has asserted. “We sent more sterile flies, we identified funds to aid in the construction of the Mexican facility that the Trump administration needed to distribute in a timely fashion, we provided technical assistance, and we closed southern ports of entry to livestock,” he said in an emailed response when asked about the secretary’s remarks.
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“As for the ridiculous notion we should have prevented the screwworm from coming into Mexico in the first place, since when should we in charge of the southern border of Mexico? If that is the standard, then is the first Trump administration responsible for it getting into Guatemala?”
Officials estimate that 500 million sterile flies will be needed per week to beat back the fly. About 100 million now come from a facility in Panama, and another 100 million will become available when a facility in Mexico comes online. Another 300 million flies are due to be produced at the new facility being built in Texas.
The former officials also say cuts to staff at APHIS, which lost nearly one of every four employees, mostly due to deferred resignations and retirements, cannot be discounted when analyzing the situation.
“The focus of the first year of the administration centered on the plans to reorganize USDA, cut budgets, staff and programs advanced by the Biden administration, all of which takes time and focus away from other important work,” Vilsack said. “In this work, you have to prioritize time. We made the response to screwworm a priority and our actions reflected it.”
Booke Rollins (AP photo) One of the former officials said that when the new administration came in, “It was challenging to convince the [new] folks that this was really important. There was a little bit of a lack of a sense of urgency. … It was almost essentially starting from scratch, because a lot of the folks who came into the administration were not aware of how important that work was.”Vilsack tapped the CCC for nearly $275 million in efforts to fight screwworm, the officials said. Money was used to boost the production of sterile flies in Panama, set up an incident command structure within APHIS, and help coordinate strategy with Central American officials. Funding was made available at the end of 2023 and 2024.
One of the officials also pointed to the cutting of programs at the U.S. Agency for International Development, as reported by Agri-Pulse in March 2025.
About $250 million in USAID money was for projects at the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization’s Global Health Security Program, and part of it was intended for “monitoring and containing avian flu and New World screwworm in Central America, monitoring avian flu outbreaks in Asia and improving the detection of new strains, and efforts to combat swine fever, according to a person familiar with the situation granted anonymity to speak frankly,” Agri-Pulse reported.
“That's something that is not being talked about as much as it probably should be,” said one of the former officials.
Responding to questions from Agri-Pulse, the FAO confirmed the funding cuts, which resulted in “reductions to some FAO activities previously supported through the Emergency Centre for Transboundary Animal Diseases (ECTAD) and Global Health Security programmes. For more than 20 years, U.S. support through ECTAD was a cornerstone of FAO's work to help countries strengthen their capacity to prevent, detect and respond to transboundary animal diseases.”
Asked about the impact of the cuts, FAO’s statement said “the reductions meant that some planned country support — including disease surveillance, laboratory strengthening, veterinary training and outbreak preparedness — could not be implemented as originally planned or had to be delayed or scaled back. FAO prioritized critical activities where possible, but sustained investment in early detection and rapid response remains essential."
“Once diseases like New World screwworm become established, the cost and complexity of controlling them increase significantly,” the statement said. “That is why FAO is working with countries and partners to build a broader, more sustainable financing model for transboundary animal diseases — one that strengthens country capacity and is not dependent on any single source of funding.”
One unintended result of the cutbacks in APHIS staff and reassignment of personnel to the screwworm effort is that needed work at U.S. ports is being delayed, one of the officials said.
“What you saw and continue to see is slowdowns and work at the ports, you're seeing slowdowns in some of the work at the state level with some of the other diseases that folks are focusing on, and you definitely have seen a slowdown in trade negotiations and trade agreements, which is a big core function for APHIS as well,” the official said.
As for the screwworm, Shea said, “Once it's there, I don't see it going away easily, so hopefully they can just kind of keep it somewhat under control until a new facility comes on line, and then it's going to be a matter of doing it all over again, and dropping sterile flies.”
“In the meantime, it’s going to be expensive — manageable in some respects, but an expensive proposition — because that all they can do is constantly look for it, and then treat cows or cattle or other animals. … It’s hard, tough work, literally looking animal by animal, and then doing the treatment work on it, so that will require lots of people.”
