Rhonda Bomwell had never used a flea and tick collar before. Pierre, her9-year-old Papillon service dog, was mostly an indoor animal.
Still, her veterinarian recommended she purchase one, so Bomwell went to thepet store near her home in Somerset, New Jersey, and selected Bayer’s Serestocollar.
A day later, on June 2, 2020, Pierre had a seizure, collapsing while Bomwellwas making dinner. Lying on his back, the dog stopped breathing and his eyesrolled back.
Bomwell tried giving him CPR. Then she called the police. An officer helpedher lift the dog into her car, and she rushed him to the hospital. Pierre diedbefore he could receive medical treatment. Bomwell didn’t think to take offPierre’s collar.
“I just didn’t put it together,” she said.
Bomwell isn’t alone. Seresto, one of the most popular flea and tick collars inthe country, has been linked to hundreds of pet deaths, tens of thousands ofinjured animals and hundreds of harmed humans, U.S. Environmental ProtectionAgency documents show.
Yet the EPA has done nothing to inform the public of the risks.
Seresto, developed by Bayer and now sold by Elanco, works by releasing smallamounts of pesticide onto the animal for months at a time. The pesticide issupposed to kill fleas, ticks and other pests but be safe for cats and dogs.
But thousands of pets are being harmed, according to federal documentsobtained through a public records request from the Center for BiologicalDiversity, a nonprofit organization that watchdogs the EPA as part of its workto protect endangered species. The center provided the documents to theMidwest Center for Investigative Reporting.
Since Seresto flea and tick collars were introduced in 2012, the EPA hasreceived incident reports of at least 1,698 related pet deaths. Overall,through June 2020, the agency has received more than 75,000 incident reportsrelated to the collars, including nearly 1,000 involving human harm.
Source: USA Today
You can read more athttps://www.usatoday.com/story/news/investigations/2021/03/02/seresto-dog-cat-collars-found-harm-pets-humans-epa-records-show/4574753001/
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