Is your pet spreading toxic chemicals all over your home?
Researchers at the Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, Ohio have just issued a big warning about how pet medications can easily poison kids.
They’ve even listed tips on how to keep our kids and grandkids safe, which is a great idea.
But here’s something they didn’t tell us: Countless flea and tick collars, sprays and even “spot” treatments contain powerful pesticides, some of which are known to cause cancer.
And you, your kids and grandkids (not to mention your dog and cat) can be poisoned by these chemicals even when you use them exactly according to directions.
Apparently there are lots of ways pet meds can put kids in danger.
Dog and cats can spit out drugs on the floor in easy reach of a child, or kids could find some left over in a food bowl. Another tip the researchers of this new study offer is to keep pet drugs in their original containers so we don’t confuse them with ones we take.
But unfortunately (considering all the press coverage this study received), these Nationwide Children’s Hospital researchers lost a big opportunity to warn about one of the easiest ways kids and adults can be poisoned by certain pet products.
And that’s simply by using them.
Think about it — kids hug, touch and kiss pets. Fido and Fluffy might sleep on your bed or the couch. And when they’ve been treated with flea and tick products, they may very well be leaving a behind a toxic trail of pesticides wherever they go.
These products are designed to kill. And while we expect them to kill any fleas or ticks on your pup or kitty, there can be collateral damage.
Take tetrachlorvinphos, or TCVP, for example. This chemical (which is banned in Europe), is toxic to the nervous system, can cause seizures, respiratory paralysis, and is most likely a carcinogen. In 2009 the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) petitioned the EPA to stop allowing its use in pet products, as studies found that flea and tick collars can leave large amounts of the chemical residue on pet fur.
Yet here we are eight years later, and, according to a federal database, that chemical can still be found in at least six big-name spray and flea collar products for cats and dogs. The EPA says that maybe it will finally make an announcement about what it intends to do, if anything, sometime this year!
Then there’s permethrin and piperonyl butoxide. On top of permethrin being linked to hormone disruption, allergies, asthma and cancer in humans, it’s extremely toxic to cats. It’s also in lots of yard and carpet sprays and flea treatments for dogs.
And, despite the fact that piperonyl butoxide is highly toxic and can damage your liver and nervous system and cause cancer, you can find it in scores of pet products, from flea shampoos to wipes to sprays.
But if you think those “spot” treatments — the ones applied to the neck and shoulder area — are safer options, that’s not necessarily the case, either. There are tens of thousands of reports sent in to the EPA about these products causing adverse reactions in beloved pets, including many who died.
While the EPA isn’t saying — or doing — very much about this, it did reveal a frightening bit of information two years ago.
Small dogs appear to have the most adverse reactions to these flea and tick products. And the breeds at the highest risk are Chihuahuas, Shih Tzu, Poodles, Pomeranians, Dachshunds, Maltese, Yorkshire terriers, and Bichons.
Obviously, with the dizzying array of things out there to control pests on our pets, it can be almost impossible to figure out which products are safer for both us and our four-legged friends. But here’s one thing you can do.
The NRDC has put out something called the GreenPaws Flea and Tick Products Directory, where you can enter the name of a product and receive a rating of its risk according to the most current data.
You can check it out by going to www.simplesteps.org/greenpaws-products.
“Pet meds sending kids to the ER” Steven Reinberg, February 6, 2017, CBS News, cbsnews.com
