b'SENSE, NONSENSE AND SCIENCEBY: JOE SCHWARCZGOVERNMENT FUNDED RESEARCH IS A WASTEFUL SQUANDERING OF PUBLIC MONEY. OR IS IT?I t was the 1950s. In the southern U.S.access to X-ray equipment. Off they went screwworms were literally screwingwith a brood of flies to give the theory a cattle, and figuratively doing the sameshot. The X-rays did indeed render the flies to ranchers who were annually losing theinfertile, and they did that without affect-equivalent of $1.8 billion in todays dollars.ing their love life. But a lab experiment was The screwworm is the larva of Cochliomyiaone thing. Would releasing the flies into the hominivorax, commonly known as thewild have an effect? And where could this screwworm fly. The creature does lookbe tried? Once again, chance opened the somewhat like a worm, and the little spikesdoor.that cover its body gives the appearance ofCuraao was experiencing a screw-the thread of a screw. It is these spikes thatworm fly infestation and goat herds were allow the worm to burrow into the fleshbeing decimated. An official reached out of animals as a screw might do. Then theto Knipling, who had made already made a screwworm starts chomping away, eatingname for himself in the scientific literature the animal alive. Ranchers were at theirwith his publications on diseases trans-wits end. Fortunes were being lost in deadmitted by biting insects. The entomologist cattle.jumped at the opportunity to carry out a Scientists were finally able to find areal-world experiment! X-ray machines way to proverbially bring the screwfly towere not a practical way to sterilize large its knees, but it took a critical observationas the flies multiplied, Knipling made a cru- numbers of flies, but it turned out that about the females sexual appetite, a labora- cial observation that while male flies wereradiation from Cobalt-60, a byproduct of tory full of rabbits, a Nobel laureates con- promiscuous, females mated only once! Ifnuclear reactors, fit the bill. In 1953 mil-cern about nuclear war, an X-ray machine,somehow male flies could be sterilized andlions of sterile flies were dropped from the and a letter from the Caribbean island ofreleased into the wild, females, unaware ofair over Curacao and the screwworm fly was Curaao!the males lack of potency, would be lurederadicated! The success of that experiment The life cycle of the screwworm flyinto mating but would produce no offspring.led to a widespread program of sterile fly is only about three weeks, but that is longKnipling and Bushland were floatingrelease in the U.S. and by 1966 cattle were enough to cause catastrophic damage. Athe idea of some sort of chemical agent thatno longer tormented, ranchers relaxed, and female can lay up to 400 eggs in one shot,would sterilize males. However, none of theconsumers enjoyed lower beef prices. preferring an open wound where the eggschemicals they tried was effective in steri- Sporadic infestations by screwworm can hatch into larvae that immediately divelizing flies. The researchers frustration con- flies migrating from South America have deeper into tissues. Such wounds may cometinued until 1950 when Knipling happenedoccurred since, but today a large facility from branding, dehorning, castrating or justto come across an article by Dr. Hermannin Panama continuously raises sterile flies being scratched by barbed wire. An animalMuller who had received the 1946 Nobelready to be released at the first sign of an can die from damage to critical organs orPrize for the discovery that mutationsinfestation. Curiously, given that govern-from secondary bacterial infections of opencan be induced by X-rays. This promptedment funded research resulted in the devel-wounds. Once the larvae have gorged them- Knipling to contact Muller and solicit hisopment of an effective method to control selves, they drop to the ground where theythoughts about sterilizing the screwwormthis devastating insect, the granting of burrow into topsoil, pupate, and emerge asfly with X-rays. Mullers response that thegovernment funds to study the mating flies to start the dreadful cycle again.idea was sound got the ball rolling.habits of the screwworm fly is still some-In the 1930s, entomologists EdwardBy this time, much to the relief oftimes brought up as an example of waste-Knipling and Raymond Bushland wererabbits, Knipling and Bushland had foundful squandering of public money. Thats a struggling to find a solution to the screw- that large numbers of screwworm fliesnonsensical view. Without such funding, fly problem. Rabbits inflicted with lesionscould be raised on ground meat. Luckily,researchers would not have been able to proved to be an ideal breeding ground, andthey also had a friend at a hospital withsuccessfully screw the screwfly. EUROPEAN-SEED.COMISEED WORLD EUROPE I 25'