Your Pet’s Anti-Flea Collar and
Other Pet Products Can Poison You
and Your Child
The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) has made its own assessment that the pesticide products we use, to ward off the fleas and ticks in our pet can put the family’s health at risk. The council made their own assessment since they were not satisfied with EPA’s evaluation of the health hazards presented by these pet products.
An offshoot from the 1999 warning issued by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), that pet shampoos, dips, sprays dusts, spot-on, and flea collars containing pesticides can cause terrible damage, including brain impairment among toddlers if continuously exposed to toxic substances contained in these anti-flea pesticides.
Based on the NRDC’s survey, almost ninety percent of American pet owners still use pesticides containing “organophosphate” substances as main ingredient for the pesticides. “Organophosphate” substances are classified into seven toxic materials, which are; chlorpyrifos, dichlorvos, phosmet, tetrachlorvinphos, malathion, naled, and diazinon.
Manufacturers of these pet products use more than one or two mixtures of these “organophosphate” substances as agents for exterminating fleas and ticks among household pets. What’s worse, the survey also revealed that a homeowner may even use more than one pesticide product in a single day either simultaneously or in succession.
A bath that utilized an application of a pet shampoo is followed by a treatment of dip, spray or collar which exposes the whole household to a more than minimal amount of the inherently toxic ingredient collectively known as “organophosphate”.
The need for these pesticides arise from our own natural instincts to pet, hug and show more affectionate gestures such as nuzzling our noses to show our great love for them. Little do we know that these same gestures put us at risk because we tend to create closer contact with the harmful substances we applied on their furs and flea collars.
Reportedly, the following dangers are present:-
Children under six are the most vulnerable to acute poisoning from prolonged exposure to “organophosphate”. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued their warning in light of several hospital reports concerning children being poisoned as a result of their exposure to the toxic ingredient. Investigations traced the toxin as all emanating from the pets in each of the child’s household, which regularly used more than one type of anti-flea pesticide. Affected children are said to be at risk of developing life-threatening illnesses, develop a certain disability, and at worst, die.
What makes every child or toddler more susceptible is that childred have the tendency to put their hands in their mouth after making direct contact with a pet that was recently treated with an anti-flea product.
- A child still in the development stage of his or her brain and nervous system faces irreversible damage in the brain cells, enough to impair the brain’s full development. This particular weakness in the brain development can later lead to cancer and Parkinson’s disease.
Records at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show that in the past years, more than a thousand pets have died because of pesticide poisoning.
These very same pesticides are capable of polluting our environment. Water run-offs carrying residues of the pet shampoo, will find its way to streams that lead to rivers and estuaries. Dusts, sprays, and powders become part of the air pollutants.
The Natural Resources Defense Council recommends safer alternatives, which include insect growth regulators or IGR, which can exterminate and arrest the breeding of young fleas. These IGRs are not classified as pesticides and are made of chemicals verified as non-hazardous both to human health and to the environment.
What the NRDC emphasizes is the need to exert more effort by washing and combing our pets more often as well as keeping our furniture and carpet vacuumed and clean all the time. The need for IGR’s will arise only, in cases of severe infestations due to lack of proper pet hygiene.
It’s about time to green not only your own lifestyle but also that of your pet’s. Our health, our children, our pets’ and our environment deserve a better product, those that were created and formulated with our safety in mind.
EPA Advisory: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 EPA’s National Pesticide Telecommunications Network, at (toll free) 1-800-858-7378.
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