Sharon Too wrote:
There was a news article I read recently which told of the dangers of
over the counter flea and tick medicines.
First of all, don't panic. The EPA has issued a statement that also contains
the following:
"Flea and tick products can be appropriate treatments for protecting your
pets and your family's health because fleas and ticks can transmit disease."
EPA link:
http://yosemite.epa.gov/opa/admpress...0!OpenDocument
Actually those "products" are pesticides and can cause more harm than
the fleas and ticks.
Each year, Americans purchase and apply to their pets a vast array of
toxic chemicals intended to kill fleas and ticks. These products are
designed to poison insects, and they usually do just that. But they can
also poison pets and the people who handle them. Moreover, when these
products are combined in the home, as they often are, with other toxic
chemical products in common use -- pesticides, herbicides, and other
products -- they can pose a serious health risk, especially to children.
Adults are at risk from these flea and tick products as well -- pet
workers who apply pesticides to animals on a daily basis, for example.
But it is children who are most vulnerable. Because children's bodies
are still developing, they can be more sensitive to the effects of toxic
chemicals than adults. Studies with laboratory animals have raised
concerns among scientists that children exposed to certain of the
pesticides in pet products -- even at levels believed to be safe for
adults -- face much higher risks, not only for acute poisoning, but also
for longer-term problems with brain function and other serious disease.
Moreover, children's behavior often makes them more vulnerable than
adults. In particular, toddlers' hand-to-mouth tendencies make it easy
for toxics to be ingested -- and not just by children who pet the family
dog and then put their hands in their mouths. Children spend their time
where the toxics from pet products tend to accumulate -- crawling on
rugs, playing with pet toys, handling accumulations of household dust,
and more.
Many and perhaps most Americans believe that commercially available
pesticides, such as those found in pet products, are tightly regulated
by the government. In fact, they are not. Not until the passage of a
1996 law focused on pesticides in food did the Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA) begin examining the risks from pesticides in pet products
in earnest. To this day, the EPA allows the manufacture and sale of pet
products containing hazardous insecticides with little or no
demonstration that a child's exposure to these ingredients would be
safe. Just because these products are on store shelves does not mean
they have been tested or can be presumed safe.
Of course, as bad as these products may be for pet owners and
caregivers, they often are worse for the pets themselves. Based on the
very limited data available, it appears that hundreds and probably
thousands of pets have been injured or killed through exposure to pet
products containing pesticides. As with small children, pets cannot
report when they're being poisoned at low doses.
http://www.nrdc.org/health/effects/pets/execsum.asp
The only problems we've seen are with the over the counter products
Lies, lies and more lies....
more lies snipped
Vets are supposedly seeing a
large increase in the number of animals with liver and other problems
due to these medicines and chemicals in the pet food.
Chemicals in the pet food?? I'm sure Chard "Harold Hill" will jump on this
bandwagon with her trombones, but this is new to me.
That's a shame you are so out of touch. Especially you since you are
supposed to be so knowledgeable.
What medicines do you all think are good and safe to use to get rid of
fleas and ticks and also heartworm medicine?
There is no such thing as heartworm "medicine". Those are also pesticides.
And a properly fed dog would not have to worry about an infestation of
heartworms.
We recommend the Advantage products. We also carry Frontine, Revolution and
Promeris. One product does not address all three (fleas, ticks, heartworm).
Advantage Multi covers fleas, heartworms and some internal parasites, but
not Ticks. You can use Advantix which covers fleas and ticks and supplement
monthly as well with Heartguard or Iverheart Max for heartworm prevention.
*note: Revolution does address fleas, ticks and heartworm, but only one
particular tick*
And they are all pesticides.
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Poisons on Pets
Health Hazards from Flea and Tick Products
This November 2000 NRDC report highlights the potential health hazards
to humans and pets from flea collars and other flea and tick control
products. The report recommends that the EPA ban the use of an entire
class of these products -- those using organophosphates. It also offers
recommendations for pet owners on combating fleas and ticks with a
variety of simple non-chemical steps and/or by applying safer products,
including insect growth regulators. The executive summary of the report
follows; the complete report is available in Adobe Acrobat format
(459k). Click here to get a free copy of the Acrobat Reader from Adobe.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Each year, Americans purchase and apply to their pets a vast array of
toxic chemicals intended to kill fleas and ticks. These products are
designed to poison insects, and they usually do just that. But they can
also poison pets and the people who handle them. Moreover, when these
products are combined in the home, as they often are, with other toxic
chemical products in common use -- pesticides, herbicides, and other
products -- they can pose a serious health risk, especially to children.
Adults are at risk from these flea and tick products as well -- pet
workers who apply pesticides to animals on a daily basis, for example.
But it is children who are most vulnerable. Because children's bodies
are still developing, they can be more sensitive to the effects of toxic
chemicals than adults. Studies with laboratory animals have raised
concerns among scientists that children exposed to certain of the
pesticides in pet products -- even at levels believed to be safe for
adults -- face much higher risks, not only for acute poisoning, but also
for longer-term problems with brain function and other serious disease.
Moreover, children's behavior often makes them more vulnerable than
adults. In particular, toddlers' hand-to-mouth tendencies make it easy
for toxics to be ingested -- and not just by children who pet the family
dog and then put their hands in their mouths. Children spend their time
where the toxics from pet products tend to accumulate -- crawling on
rugs, playing with pet toys, handling accumulations of household dust,
and more.
Many and perhaps most Americans believe that commercially available
pesticides, such as those found in pet products, are tightly regulated
by the government. In fact, they are not. Not until the passage of a
1996 law focused on pesticides in food did the Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA) begin examining the risks from pesticides in pet products
in earnest. To this day, the EPA allows the manufacture and sale of pet
products containing hazardous insecticides with little or no
demonstration that a child's exposure to these ingredients would be
safe. Just because these products are on store shelves does not mean
they have been tested or can be presumed safe.
Of course, as bad as these products may be for pet owners and
caregivers, they often are worse for the pets themselves. Based on the
very limited data available, it appears that hundreds and probably
thousands of pets have been injured or killed through exposure to pet
products containing pesticides. As with small children, pets cannot
report when they're being poisoned at low doses.
Healthier alternatives to these pesticides are readily available. Easy
physical measures like frequent bathing and combing of pets can make the
use of pesticides unnecessary. Pet products containing non-pesticide
growth regulators also can stop fleas from reproducing successfully. In
addition, newer insecticides, sprayed or spotted onto pets, have been
developed that are effective against fleas and ticks without being toxic
to the human nervous system. The safety and effectiveness of these
alternatives makes the continued use of older, more toxic pet products
tragically unnecessary.
Pet Pesticides at Work
Approximately 90 percent of American households use pesticides.
According to one study, 80 percent of families surveyed have used
pesticides at home even when a woman in the household was pregnant, and
70 percent have used them during a child's first six months of life.
Half of the surveyed families reported using insecticides to control
fleas and ticks on pets. More than a billion dollars a year are spent on
flea and tick products.
Unfortunately, the wide use of these products is no indication that they
are safe. Quite the contrary, the pesticides they introduce into the
home include chemicals that are hazardous to the human brain and nervous
system, chemicals that may disrupt the human hormone (endocrine) system,
and pesticides suspected of causing cancer.
Flea control products now on the market include seven specific
"organophosphate insecticides" (OPs). OPs work by blocking the breakdown
of the body's messenger chemical, acetylcholine, thereby interfering
with the transmission of nerve signals in the brains and nervous systems
of insects, pets and humans alike. In the presence of OPs, acetylcholine
builds up in the body. The resulting interference with nerve
transmissions is of such a magnitude that it actually kills insects. In
overdoses, OPs can also kill people and pets. But even with normal use
of flea-control products containing OPs, pets and children may be in danger.
The seven OPs are chlorpyrifos, dichlorvos, phosmet, naled,
tetrachlorvinphos, diazinon and malathion. They are the active
ingredients in dozens of pet products. A comprehensive list of products
appears in Table 1. It includes major pet pesticide brands, such as
Alco, Americare, Beaphar, Double Duty, Ford's, Freedom Five, Happy Jack,
Hartz, Hopkins, Kill-Ko, Protection, Rabon, Riverdale, Sergeant,
Unicorn, Vet-Kem, Victory and Zema.
Organophosphate chemicals are also used on foods and in other common
household products designed to kill non-pet-borne insects. For families
exposed to these toxic chemicals, however, the route into the home and
the specifics of how the chemicals work are less relevant than the plain
fact that they pose a health threat. From a health standpoint, a
person's combined exposure to one of these OPs, irrespective of its
individual uses, is what is important. Further, because the various OPs
all function by attacking the same chemical in the body, acetylcholine,
exposure to a variety of OPs could have a combined impact.
The EPA's Role
Actual exposure of children and adults to OPs in pet products has not
been adequately measured, and such studies have not been required of
manufacturers seeking to put new pet pesticide products on the market.
Indeed, until passage of the 1996 Food Quality Protection Act, EPA
typically assumed there were no risks from these products, often with
little or no scientific basis. In other words, EPA has allowed for
decades the manufacture and sale of products containing pet pesticides
without demonstration that a child's exposure to the products would be safe.
The 1996 law requires something new of EPA: that it estimate the
accumulated effect on people of particular pesticides used on food
products, accounting not just for exposure from foods, but from all
sources. Since OPs used in pet products also are used on food crops, the
law applies to these pesticides. Another provision of the law requires
EPA to estimate the cumulative effect on a person from exposure to all
pesticides and other chemicals that function in the same way. Because
each OP functions by attacking the same chemical messenger in the body,
home exposure to a variety of different OPs should be expected to have a
cumulative health impact as well. The new law directs EPA to account for
this cumulative effect in its risk assessments.
To date, EPA's compliance with the Food Quality Protection Act's
provisions has been incomplete. Its risk assessments have been
handicapped by flawed and inconsistent assumptions that have served to
understate the risk from pet products. For example, in calculating risks
of exposure to one chemical, EPA assumes that adults never hug their
dog, and in a number of instances, EPA makes a variety of unrealistic
assumptions about how long children spend in contact with their pets.
Moreover, four years after the enactment of the Act, EPA has yet to
comply with the requirement that the Agency account for the cumulative
impact of multiple OPs or of other chemicals that function in the same
way. Here again, the result is risk assessments that understate the
health hazards of exposure to the toxics in pet products. Finally, still
today, EPA has never received adequate toxicity tests for these
pesticide products long on the market. Of the seven chemicals that are
the focus of this report, only one -- chlorpyrifos -- has been fully
tested for its impact on a child's brain and nervous system. And, when
the nervous-system testing for chlorpyrifos was recently completed, the
results were so disturbing that the manufacturer itself took virtually
all indoor uses of the chemical off the market.
If you think you or your pet has been affected by a pet product
containing pesticides, call your local poison control center if you need
immediate help, and report the incident to the EPA's National Pesticide
Telecommunications Network, at (800) 858-7378.
BTW, bad reactions to pet chemicals are so very under reported and until
that changes those pesticides will stay on the market.