Alva Review-Courier -

ROME, N.Y. (AP) — In his bed at a New York state group home for the severely disabled, Steven Wenger lay helpless against a silent invader.

A slimy, wriggling clump was growing around the hole in his throat near his breathing tube. Nurses peered closer and made a discovery almost unheard of in modern American health care: maggots.

For Wenger, unable to walk, speak, or breathe without a ventilator since a car accident 26 years ago, it was the first of two infestations of the larval flies in his throat over successive days last summer, resulting in repeated trips to an emergency room and a state...