OT: EPA warns pet owners of unsafe flea, tick products - Advantage and Frontline

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EPA warns pet owners of unsafe flea, tick products

In U.S., Advantage and Frontline are available only from vets

Saturday, March 13, 2004

By CANDACE HECKMAN

SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/164674_pesticides13.html

Environmental regulators are concerned that the overwhelming majority of

two popular brands of flea and tick pet treatments available in retail

stores are counterfeit products that might lead to overdosing small pets.

So far, the Environmental Protection Agency has issued stop-sale orders

to 56 retailers in seven states for selling variations of Advantage and

Frontline that were intended for foreign markets.

Consumers should look for products with foreign instructions, likely

German or French, and vials that are easily opened. EPA-registered

products are supposed to be childproof and should be difficult to open.

An ongoing federal investigation has revealed that these products,

although legitimately manufactured overseas, have been repackaged with

American labels and contain higher amounts of active pesticide and

incorrect pet weight ranges.

Because the counterfeit products were not subject to federal regulation,

there is no way to know whether a single dose intended for a 100-pound

dog in Paris was put into a box meant for a 10-pound cat in Seattle.

Consumers who have counterfeit products are being asked to contact the

store from which they bought them. Retailers are being ordered to

destroy the products.

Pet owners at the new Belltown dog park were surprised and concerned

about the news.

Jody Senclare said she used Advantage last year on Sam, her mixed

terrier. He seemed to react badly to it, so she threw the rest in the trash.

" I'd rather use natural (methods), anyway, like feeding him garlicky

stuff, " she said.

Around the corner at Belltown Feed and Seed, owner Peggy said she

stopped ordering the Advantage products from an outfit in California

because she found the instructions were in German.

" It was dirt-cheap, half the price of the real stuff, " said.

, who keeps a few boxes of Advantage in a small basket behind the

cash register, said that she tries to persuade people to use other, more

natural flea-control methods.

Federal authorities and manufacturers Bayer HealthCare, the maker of

Advantage, and Merial Ltd., the maker of Frontline, started an intensive

investigation more than a year ago to track the movement of these products.

They found, based on a Bayer analysis, that nearly 90 percent of the

Advantage and Frontline products on retail shelves are counterfeit,

Seattle EPA spokesman Chad Schulze said.

The reason is most likely because the manufacturers sell their U.S.

products only through veterinarians. Even the legitimate products are

" somewhat black-market, " he said, because retailers can't buy them

direct from the makers.

Schulze said the agency doesn't plan to pursue charges against

retailers, instead focusing blame on distributors, many in California.

Calls to Bayer and Merial went unanswered yesterday. But in a company

statement, the head of Bayer's animal-health division, Payne, said

he believes vets are the ones who should be providing the product and

instructing consumers how to properly use it.

" Our sales policy protects consumers and their pets from counterfeit

products, and we will aggressively enforce our policy and take legal

action wherever appropriate, " Payne said.

Six pet-supply stores in Western Washington and eight in Oregon have

been caught by EPA agents, but there are potentially hundreds of other

stores in the Pacific Northwest that have not yet been questioned or

visited, Schulze said.

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