Laboratory studies of the ingredients of seven popular flea and tick control products reveal adverse health effects in all animals tested. The effects of these well-known and aggressively marketed products range from seizures, body tremors, and difficulty breathing to thyroid cancer, brain damage, and liver and lung tumors. Yet TV commercials featuring loyal veterinarians only show the happy side of these products.
What flea and tick pesticide do you use on your dog and/or cat? If your favorite treatment contains the active ingredient fipronil, imidacloprid, methoprene, permethrin, pyriproxyfen or the inert ingredient butyldydroxytoluene, butylhydroxanisole, carbitol, ethanol or polyvinylpyrrplidone, you should also know the less happy side of these products.
If you think your local vet or pet store would ever sell you such a sinister poison, think again.
Advantage (Bayer Corporation), Adams Spot-On Flea & Tick Control (Farnam Pet Products), BioSpot Flea & Tick Control (Farnam Pet Products), Defend EXspot Treatment (Schering-Plough Animal Health), Frontline Top Spot (Merial Limited), Frontline Plus (Merial Limited) and Zodiac FleaTrol Spot On (Wellmark International) – all contain one or more of the active or inert ingredients listed above.
The toxicology and morbidity results of these pesticides have been collected over a decade of laboratory testing by the United States Environmental Protection Agency; Occupational Safety and Health Administration, United States Department of Labor; Extension Toxicology Network; Journal of Pesticide Reform; Pesticide Action Network North America and other sources, with additional information provided by Material Safety Data Sheets.
Most of the testing was done for the benefit of manufacturers of new products to qualify for registration with the EPA. Scientists overdose lab animals to determine how much of the drug will kill 50% of the population being tested. The information is then extrapolated and hypotheses made that can apply to pets and humans.
According to laboratory tests, fipronil (Frontline Top Spot and Frontline Plus) is a neurotoxin and a suspected agent of cancer in humans. Fipronil can cause liver toxicity, thyroid cancer, kidney damage, increased cholesterol, lack of coordination, labored breathing, miscarriages, and growth failure.
Laboratory tests of imidacloprid (Advantage) on mice, dogs, and rats show that this insecticide is neurotoxic to laboratory animals, also causing impaired coordination, labored breathing, thyroid damage, reduced birth weight and increased birth defects.
The broad-spectrum synthetic pyrethroid insecticide Permethrin (Adams Spot-on Flea & Tick Control; BioSpot Flea & Tick Control; and Defend EXspot Treatment) shows indications of being an endocrine disruptor and the cause of lung cancer and tumors of the liver in laboratory animals.
Methoprene and pyriproxyfen (Zodiac FleaTrol Spot On; and BioSpot Flea & Tick Control) are known as insect growth regulators (IGRs), both of which limit the growth of fleas in the juvenile stage where reproduction is not possible. Laboratory tests reveal that methoprene causes liver enlargement and kidney degeneration.
Unfortunately, few people actually read EPA test results. Fewer still want to hear about the many lab subjects (rogue dogs and cats) killed during and after the studies to determine damage to specific systems and organs. But it only takes a few people with direct thinking to make changes. Are you ready to stop this madness? There are effective alternatives, as you know.
Today there are completely natural flea and tick remedies – completely harmless to children, pets and the environment – made from pure botanical essential oils. Some natural products work quite well, some don’t, and some work much better than toxic products!
The mode of action – the way these natural remedies kill fleas and ticks – involves disrupting the insect’s ability to function by blocking a substance called octopamine. In nature, some plants have developed a natural defense against insects. These “octopamine blockers” in plants are extracted as oils and used as active ingredients. Octopamine is to an insect what adrenaline is to a human. When blocked from the system, the insect quickly dies. No worries, no fuss. No one is hurt except the bug.
Please start today to stop supporting heartless lab testing on innocent animals, the insidious cover-up and market rush of big business, and the unintended harm we can do to our children. , our pets and our planet.
