1 post from December 2006

I can remember the days before the current flea treatments where it was not unusual to have a cat (or dog) completely infested with fleas.  I would discover that I was getting flea bites as well.  That's when you know it is bad.  I would take the pets in and get flea dips and flea bomb the house.  It was quite a bit of work so it is no wonder that something would get invented.

The "New" Treatments

I can remember when The Program got introduced in the mid 1990s. Here was a once-a-month treatment that you mixed in with some cat food and the animal ingested a substance that would enter the flea when they took a bite.  It would also render them unable to reproduce.  In this sense, it was like a flea birth control pill that relied on the pet to "administer" it.  It would not kill fleas on the animal, but it worked remarkably well as the pet no longer was a breeding ground for new generations of fleas.  It really was a remarkable improvement in ease of use for the pet owner.

WIthin a year or two, other products that were even more effective came on to the marketplace.  They were not copy cat products (no pun intended).  They operated on completely different principles and one of the things they did was kill existing fleas.  We tried Advantage.  The active ingredient in Advantage is imidacloprid which I discovered is an insecticide.  We are told by the manufacturer that this is perfectly safe for the pet.  This is based solely on studies done by Bayer (not a third party).  I disagree with the safety claims.  Let's look at this.

The warning label says this with regard to human contact with the substance:

If on skin or clothing: Take off contaminated clothing. Rinse skin immediately with plenty of water for 15 - 20 minutes. Call poison control center or doctor for treatment advice.

This is what I know for sure:  this subtance is a pesticide and insecticide, as statement by the manufacturers.  If you get it on your skin, you should call poison control and of course wash it for 15-20 minutes.  The method of application for cats is to put it on the skin.  If the cat was a human, it would require a call to poison control.

Our Experiences

One of our cats had a pretty serious skin reaction right where he was treated with Advantage.  This happened twice and we took him off of it for good.   The other cat, well, he didn't have a skin reaction and we kept him on it.  Well, we have taken him off of it after learning he developed thyroid problems and liver cancer.  According to one source, there is evidence of its carcinogenic effects manifesting as thyroid lesions in dogs,  As for organ damage: liver, kidney, thyroid, heart, lungs, spleen, adrenal, brain, gonads; liver toxicity,increased organ weights, thyroid lesions, increased cholesterol levels in dogs.  For its neurotoxicity effects:  incoordination and labored breathing, muscle weakness including muscles necessary for breathing.  I should add that our cat has exhibited many of these symptoms and while determining cause and effect can be difficult, I can't help but think that some of his problems are related to using Advantage.

I have lived long enough to realize that business decisions do not consider ethical factors enough.  Usually, ethical factors only enter in under legal or financial considerations, i.e., "we better not put this on the market because the harm it does will cause us to get sued."  Financial and profit considerations tend to dominate.  Purely ethical factors almost never considered.  Legal factors and financial factors are almost always considered. 

The timing of all these new flea "treatments" is very suspicious.  I believe some of these treatments emerged because the Program was such a success.  It became immediately apparent that quite a bit of money was up for grabs.  My opinion is we as pet owners need to take responsibility to learn about these treatments and not necessarily believe the drivel that comes out in the marketing and promotion literature which has the sole purpose of selling the product.  I'm sure time will tell the truth on these treatments.  The thing about drugs and treatments is that given enough time, enough harm is done to work out cause and effect.