The big news coming out of the recently held American Mosquito Control Association convention was provided by none other than the Pentagon, which these days not only fights terrorists but bugs as well. Five years ago the Department of Defense launched its Deployed War-Fighter Protection Research Program, which spends $5 million a year to find new ways to combat disease-carrying insects that threaten the health of American soldiers. One of the program’s biggest targets is filth flies that can transmit organisms to troops in the field, rendering them ill with unpleasantries like diarrhea. “When you’re deployed, I would say 90 percent of all soldiers, service members, are going to have issues with filth flies,” said Army Lt. Col. Jason Pike, executive officer of the 65th Medical Brigade’s Force Health Protection and Preventive Medicine program headquartered in South Korea.

(by David E. Bowles