Science
Inside the plan to diagnose Alzheimer’s in people with no memory problems — and who stands to benefit
In a darkened Amsterdam conference hall this summer, a panel of industry and academic scientists took the stage to announce a plan to radically expand the definition of Alzheimer’s disease to include millions of people with no memory complaints.
Those with normal cognition who test positive for elevated levels of certain proteins that have been tied to Alzheimer’s — but not proven to cause the disease — would be diagnosed as having Alzheimer’s Stage 1, the panel members explained.
Even before the presentation ended, attendees in the packed hall were lining up behind microphones to ask questions, according to video of the event.
“I’m troubled by this,” Dr. Andrea Bozoki, a University of North Carolina neurologist, told the panel. “You are taking a bunch of people who may never develop dementia or even cognitive impairment and you’re calling them Stage 1. That doesn’t seem to fit.”
Under the proposal, tens of millions of Americans with normal cognition would test positive for abnormal levels of amyloid or tau, the two proteins the tests look for, and the majority of them may never be diagnosed with dementia, studies suggest. A 60-year-old man who tests positive, for example, is estimated to have a 23% risk of developing dementia in his lifetime.
Criticism of the plan has intensified since it was unveiled in July at the international conference attended by 11,000 doctors and scientists. But the panel, organized by the nonprofit Alzheimer’s Assn., is continuing its push to extend the diagnosis to people who have no problem recalling events or what day it is — and convince skeptics that Alzheimer’s symptoms aren’t necessary to have the disease.
Panel members argue that the earlier patients get help, the more effective it might be. The availability of new drugs for patients with early Alzheimer’s symptoms has spurred them into action now, they say.
The plan could be approved by the panel and published in a medical journal early this year, association officials said. Such a move is likely to be influential: A similar proposal in 2018 that was put forth to help guide research on experimental Alzheimer’s medications was quickly adopted by the Food and Drug Administration and is frequently cited by doctors, scientists and health insurers.
Standing to benefit are the pharmaceutical and medical testing companies who employ seven members of the 20-person panel. At least seven more members of the panel are academics who receive money from those companies for consulting or research. Panelists reached by The Times said the funding did not influence their decisions.
Four other scientists who are outside advisors to the panel are executives from Eisai and Biogen, the makers of two new medicines for Alzheimer’s patients, and Eli Lilly and Genentech, which are developing similar drugs.
The American Geriatrics Society called the panel members’ financial ties to industry “wholly inappropriate.” In an analysis of the proposal, the society warned the proposal could lead to overdiagnosis of Alzheimer’s and subject people to treatments with “limited benefit and high potential for harm.”
Others said the plan was premature at best.
“I think this is untested, uncharted territory,” said Dr. Madhav Thambisetty, a senior researcher at the National Institute of Aging. “I’m not at that stage where I would be able to make a diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease in somebody who’s cognitively normal based on the presence of a single biomarker.”
A researcher at Washington University in St. Louis works on a blood test for Alzheimer’s disease.
(Huy Mach / University of Washington via Associated Press)
Under the proposal, people with no memory problems who test positive for abnormal levels of amyloid or tau proteins would be classified as Stage 1. They would move to Stage 2 if they begin to experience “neurobehavioral difficulties” such as depression, anxiety or apathy — symptoms often unrelated to Alzheimer’s — even if the patient’s cognition is unchanged.
Stage 3 would be for those with mild cognitive impairment, while Stages 4 through 6 would describe patients with mild, moderate or severe dementia.
The move to label more Americans as having Alzheimer’s comes amid a decades-long decline in the risk of dementia. Researchers don’t know why the risk is falling, but they say higher levels of education, a reduction in smoking and better treatment of high blood pressure could all be factors.
Dr. Peter Whitehouse, professor of neurology at Case Western Reserve University, is one of several doctors who have noted that the plan could benefit the Alzheimer’s Assn. since the majority of its donations come from people who know one of the estimated 6.7 million Americans now living with the disease and want to help find a cure. If more Americans are diagnosed with the disease under the new definition, the ranks of possible donors would swell, he said.
“This raises the potential for more people to want to give money,” Whitehouse added.
The panel said it was proposing the changes now because the FDA has approved two drugs — Eisai’s Leqembi and Aduhelm from Biogen — for patients in the early stages of memory decline. While a study of Leqembi’s effects on asymptomatic people has begun, there is currently no evidence that giving it to people without cognitive impairment can reduce the risk of dementia or delay the onset of Alzheimer’s symptoms.
Another reason for the change, the panel said, was the availability of new blood tests that do an “excellent” job of detecting abnormal levels of amyloid and tau in the brain. The blood tests are easier and less invasive than the PET scans and spinal taps that traditionally have been used to measure levels of Alzheimer’s-related proteins.
“The purpose of this initiative is to advance the science of early detection and treatment,” said panel member Maria Carrillo, the Alzheimer Assn.’s chief science officer. “In order to prevent dementia, we need to detect and treat the disease before symptoms appear.”
Thambisetty and other doctors also note that the plan does not address the serious bioethical concerns that come with testing healthy people for signs of Alzheimer’s.
People with no memory problems who learn they are positive for abnormal levels of amyloid or tau proteins can suffer from depression, anxiety and thoughts of suicide, studies have found.
A doctor points to PET scan results that are part of a study on Alzheimer’s disease at a hospital in Washington.
(Evan Vucci / Associated Press)
A positive test can also lead to discrimination by employers and by companies offering life, disability and long-term care insurance. That risk is so real that people with no memory complaints who volunteer for an ongoing clinical trial that requires an amyloid test are advised to consider getting any insurance they’ve been contemplating before taking the test.
“This is an ethically gray area,” Thambisetty said of testing cognitively normal people. “There are many questions that remain to be answered.”
Added Dr. Eric Widera, a geriatrician at UC San Francisco: “If somebody tests positive for amyloid and they are an airplane pilot, do they have to disclose that to the airlines? They are not asking these questions.”
Concerns like these led the panel members to revise the draft to say they were not yet advocating for “routine” testing of those without memory problems. And Dr. Clifford R. Jack Jr., a radiologist at the Mayo Clinic who leads the panel, told The Times the proposal was not an instruction manual to guide doctors in the evaluation, diagnosis and treatment of their patients.
“Should you diagnose Alzheimer’s disease in asymptomatic persons? The answer is no,” Jack said.
The changes did not reassure skeptics.
Widera pointed out that under the revised plan, an unimpaired person who tests positive for an Alzheimer’s biomarker would not be considered “at risk” for the disease because — in the panel’s view — they already have it.
“They are redefining what it means to have Alzheimer’s,” he said. “You no longer need to have cognitive impairment to have this disease. You just need the positive blood test.”
They are redefining what it means to have Alzheimer’s.
— Dr. Eric Widera, a geriatrician at UC San Francisco
That could lead doctors to prescribe the new drugs to people without memory problems, Widera said.
Indeed, interest in testing for Alzheimer’s-related proteins exploded after the FDA controversially approved Aduhelm and Leqembi, which reduce amyloid levels in the brain.
The hypothesis is that finding amyloid early and removing it might avoid irreversible brain damage. But so far researchers have failed to demonstrate that a build-up of amyloid causes dementia — or that removing it alleviates symptoms.
The FDA went against the advice of its independent advisory committee and green-lighted Biogen’s Aduhelm in 2021 even though there was a lack of evidence that it reduced cognitive decline. A Congressional investigation later found that Biogen executives met with FDA officials — including Dr. Billy Dunn, head of the neuroscience office — dozens of times and inappropriately collaborated on a key regulatory document. Dunn did not respond to questions from The Times.
The FDA approved the second drug, Eisai’s Leqembi, in July after a study showed it could slow the progression of Alzheimer’s in people with mild cognitive impairment by less than half a point on an 18-point scale, a finding that some doctors doubt would be noticeable to patients or their families.
The agency requires both drugs to carry warnings that they can cause potentially fatal bleeding or swelling in the brain.
A closeup of a human brain affected by Alzheimer’s disease is on display at the Museum of Neuroanatomy at the University at Buffalo in Buffalo, N.Y.
(David Duprey / Associated Press)
The Alzheimer’s Assn. has been among the most vocal advocates for the two drugs, which each cost more than $26,000 a year. The group deployed hundreds of volunteers to lobby Congress and get Medicare to pay for the treatments.
While prescriptions of Leqembi are now taking off, doctors have hesitated to prescribe Aduhelm. Last month, Biogen said it planned to stop selling Aduhelm and instead focus on promoting Leqembi through its partnership with Eisai.
The Alzheimer’s Assn.’s plan to create a new class of symptom-free Alzheimer’s patients began taking shape more than a decade ago and was included in proposals to update diagnostic criteria for the disease in 2011 and 2018.
The association’s website says the idea came from a meeting of its Research Roundtable, a group that companies pay thousands of dollars to join. The roundtable meets twice a year, often at the luxury Park Hyatt Hotel in Washington, D.C. Current members include Biogen, Eisai, Lilly, Genentech, Prothena and 15 other companies. Selected academics and drug regulators from around the world are also invited to attend.
In its 2023 fiscal year, the Alzheimer’s Assn. received $4.9 million from pharmaceutical, biotech, diagnostic and clinical research companies — more than in any of the previous five years. The association said those corporate donations amount to just 1.3% of its total cash donations of $379 million that year.
Carrillo, the association’s chief science officer, told The Times in a statement that “no contribution from any organization impacts the Alzheimer’s Association decision-making, nor our positions.”
“We make our decision based on science, and the needs of our constituents,” she said.
The association spent $100 million on research in its 2023 fiscal year, including grants to some of the academic scientists on the panel or to the universities they work for. Many of those grants are aimed at creating new strategies for early diagnosis of people without memory complaints.
That message of early detection is echoed by pharmaceutical and testing companies. At a scientific conference in Boston in October, Dr. Mark Mintun, an Eli Lilly executive who is an advisor to the panel, said in a presentation that the company’s experimental medicine donanemab helped younger people and those with lower levels of tau more than it helped older people and those with higher levels of the protein.
“This gives us great urgency in thinking about how to diagnose and prepare patients for treatment,” Mintun told the audience, according to a report on the Alzforum news website.
Among the seven industry executives sitting on the Alzheimer’s Assn. panel are former FDA official Dunn, who is now on the board of Prothena, a company developing anti-amyloid drugs; Dr. Eric Siemers, chief medical officer of Acumen Pharmaceuticals, which is also working on anti-amyloid drugs; and Dr. Philip Scheltens, who heads a venture capital fund that invests in dementia drugs.
They are joined by Dr. Reisa Sperling, a Harvard neurology professor who has received research grants from Eisai and Lilly and consulting fees from 18 other companies, according to the panel’s disclosures.
Sperling has led studies investigating the value of treating people without memory problems. She said in 2013 that she could see a future where “we will treat everybody preemptively, in the same way we vaccinate.”
Other academic panel members include Charlotte Teunissen, a professor at Amsterdam University Medical Centers who conducts research for 25 companies, and Dr. Michael Rafii, a USC professor of clinical neurology, who disclosed work for 11 companies.
Both Teunissen and Rafii said their industry funding has no bearing on their judgment.
“I believe working with a diverse group of pharmaceutical and biotech companies, each with their own therapeutic approaches and strategies, can mitigate against a single company’s influence,” Rafii said.
Sperling agreed that corporate research funding did not affect her objectivity. “I want to figure out the truth,” she said.
But others are not convinced.
“This panel is dominated by those with financial ties to companies that will directly benefit” from a more expansive view of Alzheimer’s, said Widera of UCSF. “And there was no consideration about the potential downsides or risk to the number of people who are going to be now diagnosed” if its definition is adopted.
The proposal — initially dubbed “The National Institute of Aging–Alzheimer’s Association Revised Criteria for Diagnosing and Staging Alzheimer’s Disease” — has received international attention in part because it seemed to have the backing of one of the U.S. government’s premiere research centers.
The American Geriatrics Society and others said the proposal’s name implied that the NIA, which is part of the National Institutes of Health, was a full partner in the effort.
But Dr. Eliezer Masliah, director of the institute’s neuroscience division, said that while he and another NIA scientist attend panel meetings, they are not involved in its decisions. “We’re listening and recording and just keeping track of the process,” he said.
After The Times asked NIH officials about the NIA’s involvement, they said the institute’s name would be removed from the proposal’s title.
Even before the plan has been finalized, one company told investors it was poised to benefit.
In a November call with Wall Street analysts, Masoud Toloue, the chief executive at Quanterix, pointed out that the company’s blood test for tau — called p-Tau 217 — had been recommended by the panel for diagnosing the disease.
“We believe we’re in a strong position to capitalize on these opportunities,” Toloue said.
The Pacifica Municipal Pier was shut down and taped off Thursday after city workers noticed cracks running through the landmark structure and concrete chunks falling into the ocean.
It’s just one of many coastal California structures that have recently crumbled under pressure from a rising and relentless ocean.
Officials from the small, beach city south of San Francisco said the pier was closed due to “cracking, separation, and displacement of the concrete walkway and structural elements.”
It will stay closed while structural engineers asses its safety.
Photos taken by city employees show a wide crack that runs from top to bottom and across the structure as well. Other photos show a large horizontal crack under the foundation of a small restaurant on the pier, the Chit Chat Cafe.
The cafe was also shut down.
This is not the first time the 53-year-old pier has shown signs of stress. In 2021, part of it was shut down after handrails along the edge collapsed. And in 2023, after a series of storms pummeled the Central California coast, damaging parts of the pier, the structure was partially closed for more than year.
Those same storms caused extensive damage in Aptos and Capitola, 70 miles south, where piers and waterfront infrastructure were swept away or damaged.
In 2024, a 150- to 180- foot section of the Santa Cruz wharf was ripped off by powerful waves.
At least 10 of the state’s dozens of coastal public piers were closed for part or all of 2024 due to structural damage sustained in winter storms since 2022. At least five others have longer-term upgrades planned to address structural issues.
“These things are costly to maintain,” said Zach Plopper, senior environmental director at Surfrider. “They are a part of our California coastal culture in many ways, but we’re going to need to reckon with, one, the state that they’re in, and two, the continuous and worsening threats they’re going to experience,”
He said most of the piers were constructed in the early 1900s, and they weren’t built to withstand decades of rough seas, storms and rising sea level.
“With this incoming El Niño, which is forecasted to be significant, and this marine heat wave we’re in the midst of, we’re kind of in uncharted waters as far as what this winter could bring in terms of storms and swells to the California coast, and we’re likely going to see a lot more damage,” he said. “Not just piers, but roads and other coastal infrastructure up and down the state.”
There was no storm in Pacifica earlier this week, so no single event could be blamed for the destruction.
However, a 2025 report from an outside engineering firm, GHD, found that several sections of the pier were in “poor” or “serious” condition, and they recommended closure before anticipated storms or events that could “subject the piles to high winds, swells and large waves.”
The firm found several areas of the pier where concrete was missing and rebar was exposed and corroding.
“The pier has continued to experience high winds and large waves in a harsh marine environment,” the engineers wrote in the report, noting that continuous exposure to seawater or marine spray was “detrimental” to the structure.
A 2023 city report estimated it would cost $19 million to repair.
That same year, a state law was enacted to require local governments along the California coast to plan for sea level rise in the coming decades.
Sea level has risen some 8 inches, on average, along the coast in the past 150 years, Plopper said, and researchers anticipate another foot in the next 25 years.
“We’re going to see profound shifts on our coastline, none that we have ever experienced before, and building static structures on the coast just doesn’t work all that well,” he said. “We’re going to have to make some really hard decisions.”
The first five months of 2026 in Southern California have been the smoggiest — with the highest number of unhealtful air days — in more than a decade, according to statewide air monitoring.
So far this year, the South Coast air basin, which includes Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties, has seen 39 days when the concentration of lung-irritating ozone (commonly known as smog) exceeded the federal standard, according to preliminary state air quality data.
That’s even worse than the infamously hot and hazy 2017, when Greater Los Angeles had 36 unhealthful air days by June 4 and ultimately saw 145.
Many of the roughly 18 million people who live in the air basin have been subjected to unhealthful levels of ozone, a highly corrosive gas that triggers asthma attacks and a wide range of respiratory illnesses. This has taken many by surprise since successive days of smog more commonly happen in summer, when heat waves and intense sunlight convert man-made pollution into ozone.
“If we have this many violations by this time, this could be a really awful year for air quality,” said Adrian Martinez, director of Earthjustice’s Right to Zero campaign, an initiative calling for the transition away from fossil fuels. “We’re already the worst place in the country for summertime smog pollution. So it could be one of the worst years in one of the worst places in the country.”
The pollution has been especially severe in valleys. On April 18, an air monitor in Reseda in the San Fernando Valley measured the second highest spike in hourly ozone levels in the last decade.
Greater Los Angeles has seen more high-smog days so far in 2026 than any other year in the past decade.
(Courtesy of South Coast Air Quality Management District)
The South Coast Air Quality Management District says the high ozone levels are due to early heat waves. Officials said they were not aware of any increase in the pollutants — most of them from different kinds of exhaust — that lead to ozone formation.
Local temperatures have been well above normal, climbing into the mid-80s and high 90s between January and April, breaking several daily high temperature records, according to the National Weather Service.
March in particular was the warmest on record in California. Riverside had an unprecedented 13 days of temperatures above 90 degrees, the weather service said.
“It was really that heat wave — conditions we typically see in July or August, we saw them in March,” said Sarah Rees, deputy executive officer of the air district. “That put us ahead of the curve in terms of how much ozone we got.”
Air district officials urged residents to monitor pollution levels on the agency’s website and mobile app, and spend only limited time outdoors when smog levels are high.
“People generally know when there’s a wildfire, because you see the smoke and smell it,” said Scott Epstein, the air district’s manager of planning and rules. “Then, it’s like, I’ve got to take precautions. Ozone, you can’t really tell.”
Southern California has been particularly susceptible to smog formation because of its millions of gas-powered cars releasing tons of tailpipe emissions each day. The region’s sunshine acts as a catalyst for smog formation. Then the mountains trap this pollution over densely populated communities.
For nearly half a century, state and local air regulators have made rules designed to alleviate this pollution, enacting the nation’s first tailpipe emission standards in 1966 and requiring catalytic converters in 1975.
Smog-forming pollution has been dramatically reduced over the last two decades, but the region still does not meet federal air quality standards for ozone.
At an air district meeting Friday in Diamond Bar, the governing board held a moment of silence for William Burke, a former longtime chair. During his tenure, the agency enacted nearly 270 rules that are credited with reducing smog-forming pollution by hundreds of tons per day. Burke, who also founded the Los Angeles Marathon, died in May at 87.
“Those are just emission reductions,” air district Chair Michael Cacciotti said at the Friday meeting. “But what it doesn’t tell you is how many kids, families, seniors were prevented from going to the hospital from an asthma attack, didn’t get cancer or other respiratory problems.”
Several residents from the Inland Empire, which suffers some of the worst smog pollution, expressed their appreciation for the air district’s efforts. But they also stressed the need for more progress.
“I’m old enough to remember growing up in the ‘70s and ‘80s … and not being able to see the mountains for weeks and months at a time,” said Erik Morden, one of several residents who spoke at the meeting.” I know things have improved, and I want to thank all of you for all the hard work that you’re doing. But there’s a lot of invisible stuff that you don’t see, that’s still out there — a lot of particulates in the ozone and chemicals that are causing a lot of problems.”
Martinez, the Earthjustice attorney, said the abnormally early outbreak of smog should be a wake-up call to government regulators that there’s work to be done, including offering more incentives to help residents and businesses transition to zero-emission appliances.
“We shouldn’t over-complicate it. We’ve got a lot of heat, we’ve got a lot of pollution,” Martinez said. “Our contention is, this agency can’t control the weather. But the one thing it can control is the pollution.”
Federal agricultural inspectors detected a case of New World screwworm larvae — maggots that burrow into the flesh of living animals and sometimes humans — on a 3-week-old calf in south Texas, near the U.S.-Mexico border. Officials anticipated the arrival of screwworm in the United States and say they’re prepared to contain it.
New World screwworm, also known as Cochliomyia hominivorax, is starkly different from the average maggot that feeds on decaying organic matter such as garbage, rotting food or dead animals, said Tom Talbot, veterinarian and member of the California Cattlemen’s Assn.
That’s because a screwworm larva “attacks living flesh,” Talbot said.
On Thursday, the U.S. Department of Agriculture confirmed the detection of New World screwworm in the umbilical area of a bovine in Zavala County, Texas, more than 60 miles from the northern Mexico border.
As of Friday morning, there have been no additional cases of infected animals reported.
Screwworm is endemic in South America and parts of the Caribbean, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. However, the parasitic fly has been steadily moving north from Central America to Mexico since 2023.
The USDA says it has actively monitored the fly’s movement. Last month, the USDA was aware of more than 200 active screwworm infestation cases in the border states of Nuevo León and Tamaulipas, according to Mexico’s Secretary of Agriculture and Rural Development dashboard. There are currently more than 2,000 active cases throughout Mexico.
It was believed that the New World screwworm would enter the U.S. in 2025, “however, thanks to the hard work across the entire Trump administration and our industry, state, and local partners, we were able to buy time for this moment,” said Dudley Hoskins, undersecretary for Marketing and Regulatory Programs for the USDA, in a statement.
The potential economic impact of New World screwworm on the cattle industry due to import restrictions, reduced productivity and animal loss is substantial, said Sally DeNotta, director of the University of Florida’s Equine Performance Laboratory.
Last year, 175 key agricultural organizations signed a letter urging additional federal funding for screwworm-control measures, emphasizing USDA estimates that a New World screwworm outbreak in the U.S. could cost producers $4.3 billion annually and cause economic losses of more than $10.6 billion across the southern United States.
“While the fly does not survive at temperatures at or below freezing, infected animals could carry the parasite northward and spread infection during the summer months, and the temperate climate of Southern California could certainly support year-round New World screwworm populations,” DeNotta said.
Talbot said from the federal to the local level, everyone in the ranching community has been talking about the arrival of screwworm and how to combat it.
“My expectation is that there will be a minimal number of cases of [New World screwworm] in California,” he said.
That’s because there are several stations on the border in Southern California, he said, that are collecting data, monitoring for any incidents of the parasitic fly and trapping them.
Talbot says he’s confident that the proactive measures on behalf of the federal government will mitigate the screwworm’s reach and therefore not impact the beef supply locally or nationally.
How screwworm infection spreads
Female screwworm flies are attracted to the smell of wounds — that can be as small as a tick bite — and body openings such as the nose, eyes, ears and mouth where they can lay eggs, according to the CDC.
A female screwworm fly can lay 200 to 300 eggs at a time and may lay up to 3,000 eggs during her 10 to 30-day lifespan.
When the eggs hatch into maggots, the maggots eat live tissue, causing a worsening, often painful and foul-smelling wound, according to the CDC.
Screwworm has hit the United States before
There was a screwworm outbreak in the southwestern region of the United States in 1965 that prompted Mexican and U.S. livestock producers to sign a declaration to establish a joint program for the eradication of the screwworm from the states on either side of the Mexico-U.S. border, according to the National Agricultural Library.
By 1966, the United States had eradicated screwworms, but livestock remained vulnerable to reinfestation from screwworms migrating from Mexico.
Eradication was possible through the sterile insect technique, which uses gamma radiation to irradiate screwworm pupae and create sterile male flies.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service maintains a screwworm pupae sterilization facility in North America and is currently building a new center in southern Texas.
When produced and released in large numbers, sterile male flies mate with wild female flies, which then lay unfertilized eggs, according to the USDA.
“Since female screwworm flies normally mate only once, the population progressively reduces and is, ultimately, eradicated,” according to USDA officials.
Last year, the Trump administration cut thousands of grants and programs from the U.S. Agency for International Development, which includes U.S.-funded animal disease monitoring projects operated by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, Argi-Pulse Communications reported. Among the slashed programs were some dedicated to monitoring and containing New World screwworm in Central America.
Today, screwworm infestations aren’t a regular occurrence in the U.S., but cases have occurred in travelers returning from areas where the flies are present, according to the CDC.
Can infected animals be treated?
Infected wounds are cleaned and debrided to remove any screwworm larvae, after which the animal is treated with an approved insecticide, DeNotta said.
Last month, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued an emergency use authorization for several insecticides known to be effective against screwworm.
There are approved systemic and topical options for a variety of species, including cattle, horses, small ruminants, cats and dogs, DeNotta said.
“Multiple days of treatment are often required, and antibiotics and analgesics may also be administered to treat secondary infection and control pain,” she said.
If left untreated, the tissue destruction caused by flesh-eating larvae can be extensive and severe, often resulting in debilitation and eventual death of the host, DeNotta said.
“Animals that survive may suffer weight loss, poor growth and reduced productivity as a result of pain and discomfort,” she said.
Screwworm can infect humans
Human infection is rare, DeNotta said, but it can happen.
Humans are at risk of being infected by screwworms if they travel to an area where the flies are present, such as South America and the Caribbean, according to the CDC.
CDC officials said your risk of screwworm infection increases when you:
- Spend a lot of time outdoors during the day, especially if sleeping or unable to keep the flies at bay.
- Have any open wounds. A small break in the skin, including from a scratch, insect bite or recent surgery, may attract screwworm flies.
- Have a medical condition that causes bleeding or open sores, such as from skin or sinus cancer, or from treatments that can create breaks in the skin.
- Live, work or spend an extended amount of time with or near, livestock or other warm-blooded animals in areas where screwworm flies are present.
The symptoms humans experience when infected by screwworm
The following are symptoms of screwworm according to the CDC:
- Feeling maggots move or seeing maggots within a skin wound, sore or body opening.
- Painful skin wounds or sores that worsen within a few days.
- Foul-smelling odor from the site of the infestation.
- Bleeding from open sores.
Bacteria can also infect wounds where screwworm maggots are present and may cause an infection that can lead to symptoms like fever or chills.
To treat a screwworm infection, DeNotta said, people undergo the same combination of wound debridement and insecticides used in animals.
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