Are You Poisoning Your Pet with Toxic Flea and Tick Products?
Each year, Americans purchase and apply to their pets a vast array of toxic chemicals intended to kill fleas and ticks. These include collars, sprays, dusts and more. Other pet owners take their pets to veterinarians to be dipped in chemicals.
Many consumers probably assume that the products they and their vets use have been subjected to rigorous testing, and must, by virtue of their very ubiquity, be safe. After all, how could the government let deadly poisons be sold on grocery store shelves without applying stringent standards?
Spot-On Pesticides such as Frontline, Zodiac, ProMeris, Defend, Bio Spot, Adams and Advantage trigger adverse reactions in dogs and cats, shorten life spans, cause terminal illness, and premature death. The active ingredients in these solutions include chemicals such as imidacloprid, fipronil, permethrin, methoprene, and pyriproxyfen, all of which have caused serious health problems in animals in laboratories.2 Even some of the inert ingredients can be hazardous to your animal companion’s health.
Other forms of flea control?powders, collars, and sprays?are no less dangerous to you or your companion animals.
Labels may warn not to get these substances on your skin, to wash your hands after applying it, and to keep it away from children, yet these chemicals are absorbed by your animal’s skin. Immediate effects of pesticide overdose include vomiting, diarrhea, trembling, seizures, and respiratory problems.
If your dog or cat shows any of these symptoms after the application of a pesticide, immediately wash the product off and seek veterinary care.