Congress requests revocation due to link to pets

• A subcommittee of Congress is calling for a temporary revocation of Seresto flea and tick collars.
• According to a USA Today investigation, 1,700 deaths of pets tied to the collars have been reported to the EPA.
• Elanco, the company that sells the collars, told Insider he does not think a recall is necessary.
• See more stories on Insider’s business page.

After a damning investigation by USA Today linked a popular flea and tick collar to nearly 1,700 deaths to pets, a congressional subcommittee is calling for the products to be temporarily recalled.

“I think it is only in this case that the manufacturer is making a voluntary recall,” said Illinois Representative Raja Krishnamoorthi, chair of the House Subcommittee on Economic and Consumer Policy. told CBS News. “And I think it’s appropriate, out of sheer caution, that we step back, look at the situation, investigate and move on from there.”

USA Today revealed earlier this month that more than 75,000 incidents involving Seresto collars were reported to the EPA between 2012 and June 2020. These reports linked the collars to tens of thousands of animal injuries; 900 of the incidents involved people.

According to the EPA, which approved the collars in 2012, the Seresto collars are “made of plastic fertilized with insecticides”, which are released into an animal’s fur over a period of eight months. The agency does not consider the insecticides, flumethrin and imidacloprid, to be harmful to pets or humans. But a 2012 Bayer study found that the two have a “synergistic effect” and are more toxic to fleas when paired together.

Nathan Donley, a senior scientist at the Center for Biological Diversity, told USA Today that ‘synergistic effect’ is likely to apply to animals as well.

Krishnamoorthi on Thursday sent a letter to pharmaceutical giant Bayer – which developed the collars – asking for more information on the toxicity of the products. He sends another letter to Elanco, the company that sells the collars, in which he is asked to recall the products and issue refunds.

‘I know these collars killed my dogs’

Thanks to Karen Hufman

When Karen Hufman read the USA Today report, her family was still grieving over their dog Charlie, who died in August.

“I was on the floor,” she told Insider. “I said, ‘Oh my god, now I know these collars killed my dogs.'”

According to Hufman, she bought Seresto collars for Charlie and her other dog, Muffin, in October 2018 and June 2019. After the second time, Muffin, a 12-year-old Petit Basset Griffon Vendée, stopped eating. She passed away a month later.

Charlie, an English pointer-Beagle mix who was also about 12, got his third Seresto collar in February. Weeks later he was diagnosed with a bladder infection, and then cancer. One study linked the exposure of dogs to certain topical insecticides – although not using Seresto – to an increased risk of bladder cancer.

Thanks to Karen Hufman

“This month, I finally put it together: it was the collars. It was just too much of a coincidence,” Hufman said.

She added that both her dogs were very healthy before their deaths – they got exercise and ate high quality food. Nevertheless, she has no evidence that the collars were the cause of their deaths, and has not submitted any reports to the EPA.

According to Elanco, less than 0.3% of the 25 million Seresto collars sold since 2012 have been linked to incidents.

“The recent media reports are based on raw data and cannot be used to draw conclusions about what the problems actually caused,” Tony Rumschlag, senior director of technical consultants at Elanco, said in a statement to Insider, saying: “it is critical to understand that a report is not an indication of cause.”

Keri McGrath, a spokeswoman for Elanco, told Insider that the company cooperated with the House subcommittee’s request for information, but that “no action in the market, such as a recall, is warranted.”

“Elanco remains behind the safety profile for Seresto,” she added.

The 1700 deaths could be a countdown

Prior to the USA Today report, members of the House subcommittee had not heard of Seresto products. But now they have asked Elanco and Bayer to disclose their communications about the toxicity of the collars with regulatory groups such as the EPA.

Andrew Hasson / Getty

The members of the subcommittee believe that there are likely to be more Seresto incidents than the number reported to the EPA, as the reports only represent pet owners who have realized that there may be a link between the collar and the issuance of their pet, and then fill out a form or call the agency.

“We believe that the actual number of deaths and injuries is much greater as the average consumer would not know to report pet damage to EPA, an agency that appears to be unrelated to consumer animal products,” Krishnamoorthi said in his letters written.

Hufman could be such a consumer.

“My two dogs are not included in the 1,700 numbers,” she said.

McGrath said the pet owner does not rest on incidents related to Seresto collars at the EPA: “This is not the expectation,” she said.

Bayer or Elanco should rather pass on incident information to the EPA after customers or veterinarians called the companies’ hotlines. Veterinarians can also reach out directly to the EPA, she said.

Aylin Woodward / Insider

The EPA did not issue any warnings to consumers about the collars, but an agency spokesman told Insider earlier this month that he “takes every incident reported seriously and reviews this data to see if action is needed.”

Seresto flea belts are still one of the top products of their kind on Amazon and other sites like Chewy.com. Amazon spokeswoman Mary Kate McCarthy told USA Today that the company was now “going to look at the product in question”.

Although the Seresto collars have 4.5 stars on Amazon, some customers have given reviews describing the negative reactions of their pets. Many have had rashes on dogs’ backs and necks, or behavioral changes such as loss of appetite.

“They need to stop putting these collars on the dogs,” Hufman said.