Frontline worse than fleas? (a Friday cat-blog warning)
Okay, Googlers of the world, we're gonna make it easy for you: Frontline, cats, skin irritation. The popular and heavily advertised "spot-on" flea killer for cats and dogs warns on its label that it can cause "irritation" at the sight of application. "Irritation" can apparently mean "instant half-inch chemical burn with fur loss." Or at least it did for Lexi the Gorgeous Ragdoll (below).
It's been years since the cats of the Crazy Stable have had fleas...we've had a few isolated plagues over the years, including a race of superfleas that were impervious to all known interventions. But no sign of any this summer. Last night, however, Lexi leaped up with un-Ragdoll-like celerity as if nipped from below, Spouse and I panicked a bit (even though I couldn't find any evidence of infestation), and just "to be on the safe side," we applied an ampule of the Frontline we bought (and used with no problems) a few years ago. Minutes later, poor Lex had a raw chemical burn on the back of the neck. (The stuff is applied in a single spot between the shoulder blades, where it ostensibly gets distributed through the animal's coat via the sebaceous glands.)
The damn stuff is waterproof, but it still made sense to wash her immediately and at least remove some of the oily spot; turns out the most benefit was in washing away some of her skin's own oils, which disperse it. I was afraid her entire skin might get irritated. Fortunately, no sign of that yet--but a quick Internet search on Frontline made me very angry about not being a smarter, more skeptical cat mommy.
The active ingredient in Frontline is fipronil, a relatively new insecticide developed by Rhone-Poulenc, which turns out to be the same neurotoxin agent used in Combat. The Net pet boards turn up plenty of reports, not just of irritation and outright burns and fur loss in both cats and dogs, but of even scarier systemic adverse events like convulsions and other neurological problems, and even some animals' deaths. Used monthly year-round on a pet in my household (as if!), the stuff would also worry me for its association with cancer and reproductive problems in test animals. It's notable that all these anecdotes and warnings were reported by pet owners, not by vets (who make a good deal selling this and other such products and are undoubtedly the heaviest targets of promotion by companies).
But honestly, despite the company's safety claims, does it make sense that a potent insecticide, applied directly to an animal's delicate skin, where it can be licked and ingested, would be "safe"? After all the work I've done for the pharmaceutical industry's promotional tentacles, I was sort of flabbergasted at my level of trust.
Poor Lexi has dried off after her bath; the Frontline has left an oily mini-Mohawk around the bald raw spot, but removing more of it would require alcohol, which would sting like mad, so I'm going to leave her alone. No convulsions, thank God, unless you count her gymnastics trying to escape from the bathtub. (This was her first immersion bath--as we wrestled 16 lbs. of chubby frantic feline, she kept looking at us with those huge blue eyes, like, "Are you out of your freaking humanoid MINDS?")
Sorry to present a downer for Catblogging Friday, but I'm peeved that I unwittingly hurt my girl without fair warning that it could happen. I'm gonna call Merial today and blast them. Meanwhile, this article (from a hyper-"green" magazine called Whole Dog Journal, yet seemingly well-researched) gives more details. The Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Committee in 2003 reconsidered its approval of fipronil, as a possible "undue hazard" to animals and humans. (Hope those links work okay.)
I guess all this proves the point of a recent Pew survey on the blogosphere, which showed that "people are talking about the subjects that matter in their personal lives," according to Chris Anderson, the editor-in-chief of Wired and presumably a man who Knows Such Things. Anderson, a marketing oracle, observes in the New York Times, "It's narrow, niche subjects. It's a granularity of media that we in the commercial media could not scale down to."
And I say: Hey, granulate this.
Brenda from Brooklyn
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Frontline (fipronil) is a neurotoxin (as is Advantage [imidacloprid] but the vet is not using that so I didn't research it) but, significantly, it is toxic to the insect nervous system, not so much to the human. "It exhibits little mammalian non-target toxicity due to its rapid degradation by the cytochrome P450 MFO system." [http://www.biol.sc.edu/~coull_lab/staton/ab17.html] This means, more or less, that we have something in our physiology that insects lack, a system that breaks down the neurotoxic agent before it can do any harm. Indeed all mammals have this physiology. So Nell's statement that the only difference between killing an insect and killing a pet is dose is only slightly correct in that I'm sure a large enough dose of fipronil could kill a cat, or a human, but that dose doesn't correlate in any direct relation with the dose that will kill a flea. Because of the species-specific agents at work the dose doesn't scale. (This is to say nothing of non-target non-mammal species, with which the paper I quote above is rightly concerned.) Eating enough chocolate to kill a person would probably be an interesting exercise but a relatively small amount of chocolate will quite easily kill a dog, and that's all amongst us mammals. Or we can say that a massive dose of Scotch will kill you but a somewhat more conservative indulgence is merely a nice way to unwind at the end of a long day. The upshot is that fipronil was designed to be safe for mammals -- where as organophosphates were not -- and for the most part it is safe, for mammals.
That adverse dermal reaction in your cat, that's not so surprising, as sensitivity to almost anything is possible, and to something like fipronil is, well, I don't have any direct evidence but I think that much more likely.
Risk/benefit ratios are very often situational and certainly so in the case of using something like Frontline. Part of the problem is that "fipronil is toxic to the insect nervous system" gets transcribed to the Internet as "fipronil NEUROTOXIC!!!!". But anyone with a flea problem causing serious discomfort or even disease for the pet, or heading to a residential infestation, may want to seriously consider better living through chemistry. Then step up the more ecologically friendly flea-ridding tactics so they won't come back.
My 14 yr old cat, Money-Cat, has recently been diagnosed with hyperthyroidism.<:-(
She became very skinny and her coat thinned and took on a "greasy" look. Her personality also changed--becoming standoffish and vaguely "demented"--sometimes leaping up suddenly and seemingly trying to run away from herself.
I have always felt intuitively uncomfortable with using Frontline (or any other chemical flea product)--but could find nothing natural that works. Now I read on the internet that hyperthyroidism in older cats has become epidemic--and I am wondering if Frontline could be the culprit.
They certainly are spatially related--the Frontline being applied to the back of the neck, and the thyroid gland being an inch or two away on the front of the neck. And they are temporally related too, the rise in use of Frontline since 1996 paralleling the rise in feline hyperthyroidism.
Money-Cat has a few small adenomas on her thyroid--about the size and feel of medium-sized wart. And also one where I applied the Frontline. It is the adenomas that cause the increase out put of thyroid hormone. They can die of this if not treated--(with more side-effect laden chemicals)--they say. I am trying some herbs and homeoathic remedies. One I started yesterday, Glonoinum, is showing early slight promise.
Does anyone have any info on this possible connection? Or natural remedies?
I have also noticed small and medium sized scabs on his back and around his head.
I would never use frontline again as having researched it i realise it contains a strong insecticide that just cant be safe in my opinion. I too feel upset and angry that i have administered a harmful substance to my trusting little companion without realising the dangerous side effects it can cause. As the active ingredient infrontline is a relatively new insecticide i feel we can not fully know its potential harmful effects on pets. I will in future try alternative remedies for my cat.The big lesson here i realise is NEVER TRUST MULTI NATIONALS!
Haven't contacted the manufacturer yet, but will be trying to recover the cost of 4 vets visits.
My dog had horrible seizure type nervousness after Advantix II so will never use that product again.
As others have reported, they would lose the fur at the site on their neck where the med was applied- I always feel badly- but figured they needed the protection. About 3 months ago they both began to lose the fur on the inside of their legs and now their bellies. One of them seems to scratch all the time, frequently around his mouth.
We'd recently began moving them to a grain free diet, so I thought it might be the Innova. I stopped all of the new food and put them back on the Purina they'd been on for years.
I gave it 4 weeks and it was plain to see that the condition was definitely not improving, if anything still getting worse.
I've been wracking my brain trying to figure it out. I ran a search today to see if others had experienced this with Frontline and found this blog.
It's probably been cover 2 months since either of them had Frontline applied. For those of you whose cats had this problem with Frontline, how long did it take after the application - for the symptoms to stop and the fur to begin coming back in?