A very big thanks to James from BiospotVictims.org for sending this over.
Below is an aggregate incident summary report for pet spot-on products, which includes the number and severity of incidents that were submitted to the EPA by the product manufacturers in 2010:
Click HERE to download the Incident Summary.
The Exposure Type/Severity Category Codes in the report are as follows:
HD – Minor human incident
HE – Human incident-symptoms unknown or not specified
DA – Domestic animal death
DB – Major domestic animal incident
DC – Moderate domestic animal incident
DD – Minor domestic animal incident
DE – Domestic animal incident-symptoms unknown or not specified
According to the report, there were 27,216 incidents reported in 2010, which is significantly less than the number of incidents reported in 2009 (36,472), but slightly more than the number of incidents reported in 2008 (26,461), which had prompted the EPA’s investigation of pet spot-on products.
At first glance, it may look like things are improving, but upon closer examination, you find that almost all of the reduction was due to the number of incidents reported for ONE product — Sergeant’s Gold Flea & Tick Squeeze-On for Dogs (EPA Reg. No. 002517-00080), which is also sold under the name Sentry Pro XFC (same EPA Reg. No.) and TriForce Canine Squeeze-On (EPA Reg. No. 002517-00080-083333). Those products were discontinued (but never recalled) at some point last year (they are no longer shown on Sergeant’s website), which probably explains the lower number of incidents reported by Sergeant’s in 2010.
Missing from the report is a summary of incidents for Vectra 3D (aka FirstShield Trio) and Vectra for Cats and Kittens (aka FirstShield for Cats). I just asked the EPA to provide me with a summary of incidents for those products, too.
1 Comment Received
May 19th, 2011 @11:59 am
Thanks very much for posting it, Josh.
Here is the 2010 aggregate incident summary report for Vectra and Vectra 3D:
http://www.biospotvictims.org/Vectra_Incidents_2010.pdf
As you can see in the report, there were no human incidents reported, no animal deaths reported, and no major animal incidents reported by the manufacturer. None!
The above products are also distributed by Banfield Pet Hospitals under the name FirstShield and FirstShield Trio, but again, no human incidents were reported, no animal deaths were reported, and no major animal incidents were reported for those products.
I find the above statistics to be too improbable for belief.
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