Should you stop using preventive flea treatments on your pets?

Flea treatments can be given as tablets or applied to the skin YakobchukOlena/ Don’t treat your pets for parasites such as ticks and fleas unless they actually need treating. We can’t be sure that these treatments are safe for you and your family, and there is growing evidence that they pose a danger to wildlife. So says a report ’s House of Lords. It is calling for the sale of these treatments to be restricted, so people can only buy them after consultation with a vet, pharmacist or qualified pet shop staff. The main issue is that there is no rigorous assessment of pet treatments before they are approved, the report says. It’s simply been assumed , but this assumption is turning out to be wrong. In particular, at least two potent pesticides found in tick and flea treatments are getting into UK rivers at levels high enough to affect wildlife. These pesticides can break down into other substances that are even more harmful. “There is also worryingly insufficient evidence to assess whether or not [pet parasite medicines] are harmful to human health,” says the report. It also says regulators are not sufficiently independent. Both UK and international regulators “appear to be too influenced ”, it states. Both pesticides used to be used on farms until they were banned a few years ago. But they have continued to be found in rivers. In fact, with the development of more sensitive tests, they’re turning up “pretty much everywhere in waterways”, says Perkins. Initially, it was thought this was a legacy of their use by farmers, but work . In many cases, levels are high enough to harm invertebrates such as mayflies, dragonflies and caddisflies, with knock-on effects on the fish and birds that feed on them. We don’t know how big a problem this is, says the report. “The true scale of environmental harm resulting from pet parasite medications is not known.” How are the pesticides getting into rivers? Once they’re applied to pets, they end up all over the home, says Perkins. When people bathe their pets or wash pet bedding, they can end in wastewater. Product packaging currently recommends that dogs are not bathed for four days after treatment, but this needs to be extended to 28 days, the report recommends. Another major source of the pesticides in water is hand-washing, says Perkins. “We detected [pesticides] in the wash-off even before we asked people to stroke their pets, so they’re just constantly on the hands of pet owners.” Products containing fipronil and imidacloprid are now being replaced , typically sold in the form of chewable tablets.