As fleas can be damaging to family wellness, you might choose to adorn your dog or cat with a flea collar to protect their wellbeing as well as your own. However, even though you’d assume the chemicals used in these collars have been tested for safety, this isn’t always the case and may end up doing more harm than good to everyone’s wellness. This is according to a new report from the Natural Resources Defence Council (NRDC), which has found that many name-brand collars contain harmful chemicals, and the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) isn’t doing anything to prevent them from being sold.
The two chemicals targeted by the report, which are used on brands of flea collars like Hartz and Zodiac, were tetrachlorvinphos (TCVP) and propoxur. The former is a kind of nerve-damaging chemical which has actually been banned for residential use or for use on pets, while propoxur belongs to a class of chemicals called carbamates, which also cause nerve damage. Moreover, propoxur is on California’s Proposition 65 list of chemicals known to cause cancer, and the NRDC was quick to point out that exposure among toddlers and children was a particular concern, as youngsters are more likely to pet animals and then put their hands in their mouths.
According to lead author of the report Gina Solomon, MD, senior scientist at NRDC, it’s not just the manufacturers of these flea collars who are to blame, but also, somewhat surprisingly, the EPA. ‘When we took a look at the EPA’s files for these chemicals, we were stunned to discover that, after making decision to leave them on the market, they had no scientific data on which to base their decision,’ Solomon commented. ‘The fact that the EPA hadn’t bothered to see how much residue would end up on fur was a big surprise.’ So if the Environmental Protection Agency aren’t working to protect your wellbeing against chemical exposure, which is kind of their job, is it up to you to safeguard your family and your pets?
‘For an individual, the risk is pretty small,’ says Solomon. ‘But if you multiply the risk across the numbers of people who touch these collars, the number is disturbing…We really want people to reduce exposures because they’re not necessary.’ She adds that the collars may not even be effective, so step number one is to get rid of chemical collars. You may be concerned that the damage has already been done, but the saving grace of the flea-collar chemicals is that they don’t hang around for long. ‘These chemicals are not very persistent in the environment or in our bodies,’ Solomon explains, adding that washing your pets and their bedding will take care of external residues, while your body will eventually excrete internal ones.
Once you’ve got rid of the flea collar, it’s time to bath and comb your pets. Generally speaking, you should bathe your dogs every two weeks to prevent flea infestations and remove ticks that are yet to latch onto the skin. Solomon notes, ‘A flea comb will also remove ticks just as well as it does fleas, assuming they aren’t already attached.’ You also need to get hold of a flea treatment that contains insect growth regulators, (IGRs) which your vet can prescribe. Dr Solomon asserts, ‘In the long run, these are more effective because they disrupt breeding cycles of fleas.’ Finally, seeing as both you and your pet can easily succumb to the diseases carried by ticks, it’s worth investing in some of the more potent treatments. Solomon recommends fipronil, selamectin and imidacloprid for persistent tick problems.