A wave of lawsuits filed by cat and dog owners who claim their pets were sickened or killed by anti-flea or tick medication is targeting five New Jersey companies that make or sell the treatment.

Secaucus-based Hartz Mountain Corp., Summit VetPharm LLC of Rutherford, Morristown-based Bayer Healthcare LLC, Merck & Co. Inc. of Whitehouse Station and Sanofi-Aventis Inc. of Bridgewater are named as defendants in suits filed over the last four months.

Most recently, five pet owners filed suit against Hartz Mountain and Summit VetPharm last week, in U.S. District Court in Newark, alleging that their flea or tick treatments contained Pyrethrin, or a synthetic version of the chemical Pyrethroids, which are “known to poison animals.”

Both companies are owned by Sumitomo Corporation of America, the New York-based subsidiary of a Japanese trading and investment company, the suit says.

The suit accuses the companies of negligence, violating New Jersey’s consumer fraud law and liability for creating an “unreasonably dangerous product.” The products named include Hartz Ultra Guard flea and tick drops and Summit VetPharm’s Vectra 3d.

A Hartz spokeswoman said, “Hartz has not been officially served with this suit, and it is company policy not to comment on litigation.” A spokeswoman for Sumitomo Corporation of America, did not respond to a request for comment.

Also named as a defendant is Sergeant’s Pet Care Products Inc. of Nebraska, which makes flea and tick products.

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I’ve had my cat for around 8 years. I’m a fifteen year old and love her to death I’ve had her since i was little. She never ever got fleas but she happened too. We just went and got hartz flea spray at walmart and used it. It seemed to work very good. We were about to go on a camping trip but i was not leaving. My cat bubbies was acting weird and wouldn’t leave my bedroom for anything. She wouldn’t get up at all. We called the vet and they told us hartz is the worst possible thing to use. They told us to give her a bath in dawn soap and we saw results immediately. After a day we had are cat back. We were one of the lucky ones that she survived. i called hartz and complained and all they did was told me “they would pass my comment along.” Hartz is a greedy company that could care less if their products are killing pets. It great they are finally getting what they deserve. No wonder hartz kills fleas if it can manage to kill cats too.

I am reposting this to the  main page

Jacqueline Mottek February 15th, 2010 @10:20 pm

I am a class action lawyer in the San Francisco area, investigating the toxicity of Hartz and Sargent flea products and the possibility of filing a class action against the companies. I am very sorry for your loss and o-pain. Please contact me if you would like to talk about your experience and help us get these products off of the market. Thanks very much.

 Jacqueline Mottek
Positive Legal Group
 jmottek@positivelegalgroup.com
 415.302.5371 (cell)

  We bought Sergeants flea and tick after noticing a flea on one of our three boxers a week ago.  We put this (medicine) on two of the three and after a few minutes they both were starting to to act a little sick,  We didn’t think a lot of it at the time and it was late so we went to bed.  The next morning was a nightmare!  Our youngest boxer (2 years old) was so sick that he couldn’t keep his balance, was drooling, and throwing up.  He couldn’t walk. was shaking.  I called the hotline from the box,, what a joke, this woman told me to cleanse my dog’s palate with soft dog food and peanut butter, yeah right! then she told me the reason my dog was shaking was this  ” dogs shake when they are excited or anxious”. She refused to tell me anything, and told me to have my vet call her..

after talking with my vet, here’s what we did,,

Force water/chicken broth to help flush out the poisons.  SCRUB YOUR DOG WITH DAWN (BLUE) DISH SOAP, it will help remove the poison from the dog’s fur and skin and will also kill fleas, do at least three times. as soon as we did this with ours he was better within a few minutes.

This “medicine” should be removed from the shelves, and the side effects should be listed on the box!! 

From our friends at GreenPaws.org:
Green Paws and the Natural Resources Defense Council are prompting consumers to appeal directly to the Presidents and CEOs of big box retailers like PETCO and PetSmart to remove flea and tick collars containing the harmful chemicals tetrachlorvinphos and propoxur. This attempt to directly contact retailers is designed to add greater support for our formal petition with the EPA to ban tetrachlorvinphos and propoxur from pet products as well as our lawsuit filed in California against 16 major retailers who carry flea and tick products which are in violation of California’s Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act, which prohibits businesses from knowingly exposing consumers without proper warning to any chemical “known to the state to cause cancer or reproductive harm”.

Those interested in sending a message directly to these retailers can do so at the following link: http://bit.ly/grnpaws

NRDC blog posts relating to Green Paws
http://switchboard.nrdc.org/greenpaws.php

Our updated product guide:
www.greenpaws.org/products.php

Our 8 year old cat Lou is a recent survivor of the Hartz flea poison and we are so thankful that she is with us today.  Lou has been with us for 7 years after she was abandoned by her previous owners.

On December 30, 2009 around 8 a.m. she found her way home after spending a cold night probably confused and dillusional after the poison I applied the previous night.  This normally spunky cat was staggering, convulsing and incoherent.  We immediately took her to our veteranian who bathed her and medicated her.  He advised us that the chances for her survival were not good.  Throughout the day we made several trips to the vet where Lou was being treated.  Lou spent 24 hours being treated and observed to the tune of over 400 dollars.  A hefty price to correct the affects of a 4 dollar product.

Lou survived and is a normal cat today and our family is one of the lucky ones who can tell a success story.

My heart goes out to those people who do not have the funds to save their pet.

Never again will anyone in this household use any Hartz or Seargant products on any of our pets.  The suffering they cause to animals is really beyond belief.

Never!! Please, never ever use this product!

We have two beautiful healthy young dogs (4-5 yrs), with a pristine health record (until hartz of course). They get premium food – Timberwolf Organics, Acana, Origen, Blue (I mention this because poor diet is often associated with illness in your pawsy companions).

We had new neighbors with dogs move in a few weeks ago and my little one had started itching a bit. I was going to order frontline from petmeds and instead picked this up in a split second decision while walking out from Wallys. My logic being, “hey if it doesn’t work, I can still order the Frontline”. Plus it was priced at only $5.99

On Saturday evening, I showered the girls and applied this on my itchy one. The next day my dog started showing signs of minor epileptic shocks – yelping in her sleep…yes I do know about dog dreaming, but these dreams, if they were that, were, with shock, pain and disorientation. Since it was Sunday, our regular vet was unavailable. We had no idea how serious this was about to become! That night, convinced that she was having a series of bad dreams we made sure she slept close to us on the bed. The episodes continued that whole night, a couple of hours apart.

Next morning I noticed some swelling on her snout and one of her eyes. There was also a red spot on her belly. By that time we had read other peoples reviews on this product and were shocked that this poison is still put out for unsuspecting consumers!! Alarmed we called the local emergency care and described her symptoms. They urge us to rush her there. By the time we reached the hospital, my baby had gone into an anaphylactic shock. She had petechiae all over her abdomen and she was swollen all over!

She was hospitalized after she was stabilized with steroids, antihistamine and antibiotics. Our woes did not end there though. I can go into more details, but I feel it suffices to tell you all that after about four thousand dollars and a homeopathic detox program, we were finally able to get her close to normal. After about a month and a half today, she still takes some herbs and supplements to support and balance her messed up immune system.

Just ONE tube of the three doses!!

The amount of anguish and death related to this product far outweighs the justification of dogs who might be ‘flea free’. In the course of that week we must have met at least half a dozen vets who just shook their heads when I mentioned the Hartz product!! It has killed hundreds of cats apparently and is more fatal to their littler bodies (my dogs are about 65lbs each).

Please do not, do not buy this poison!!

PS: Friends on the Hartzvictims forum, please also post your reviews on potential buyer sites, like Amazon, which is where I originally posted this review.
Thanks Josh for having this site. I feel sad for, and my compassion goes out to every person and their pets on this forum.

Peace

Yesterday I was contacted (I do small scale rescue) by a woman who had a kitten she could no longer care for.   They had gotten him off of Craigslist, and his sister as well.  They had them both taken to a low cost spay neuter facility (which is great!) but they came home with fleas.  This was about a week ago.  They could not afford the good stuff, and was told over the phone by a VET to get rid of the fleas, use an over the counter less expensive product.  They went to Wal-Mart and got the Hartz spot flea treatment and applied it to both the kittens, who I failed to mention are 4 months old.  Well the little girl died the next day.  They could not afford a vet so did not bother doing anything about it.  She said the other kitten started acting lethargic, moody, and really tired.  Then a day later his hair started falling out.   She thought it was because he was just itching so much because of the fleas, which by the way, he still had.  He is completely bald on the back of his neck (where the drops were applied), the back of his ears, around his eyes, and his nose, almost his entire face.   He is going to the vet today to see what can be done.  He seems healthy other than that, acts like a normal kitten again, and is extremely loving and sweet.  just in pain and looks awful.  I dont know what can be done to help him at this point, as well as the hair and what not, but hopefully the vet will have some ideas.  It is heartbreaking to see him like this, and frustrating as anything that a vet told them to do this.  The same vet would not see them, or even work out a payment schedule with them to help this kitten out….  I am hoping for a full recovery, even if it takes a year, or 10.  We are calling him Rocky, because he is a fighter!

Christmas morning started like any other but quickly took a very scary turn.  I put my beautiful 2 1/2 year old lab (Abby) up while I dressed which took me about 45 minutes.  When I went to get Abby she was suffering terrible twitching, dilated eyes and was slobbering profusely.  I panicked because I had never seen anything like this but had enough composure to immediately begin making calls to see what to do.  I called a local pet groomer and explained Abby’s symptoms to her and shared that my husband had treated her for fleas the night before.  The groomer asked if my husband had by any chance used Hartz flea killer and upon speaking with him found he had.  Her response was that this product was nothing but poison and Abby’s symptoms were typical of some pets that had been treated with this product (Hartz Ultra Guard).  She suggested I get her to the vet immediately.  Upon arriving at the vet’s office and after explaining the previous nite’s flea treatment the vet said she was 100% sure the Hartz flea treatment was the cause of Abby’s illness.  As a result of using this deadly $5.00 treatment Abby had to stay in the hospital overnite where she was throroughly bathed, given IV treatments, injections of muscle relaxer, charcoal to help clean her system, etc at the cost of $800+.  The vet said she treats at least 2 pets per week because loving owners who knew no better used Hartz products on their pets.  She also said the majority of the smaller pets didn’t survive the damage done by this product.  How in the world can this company continue to be in business! Have the “powers that be” at Hartz no conscience or compassion for animals at all!  There is nothing on the product package that alerts potential customers of the possible side effects of use of these products.  Is this company held to a lower standard just because they are manufacturing products for pets?  Shouldn’t they be required to make buyers aware of potential harms and even fatalities suffered as a result of use or their products?  The folks at Hartz can rest assured I will tell everyone everywhere I go about my experience and I will definitely enourage everyone I encounter not to use Hartz products.  I would love to see someone persue a law suit against this money hungy company. Quite obviously their concern lies with profit, not the well being of the user!