First off, I would like to h/t ferallike who has given me all this info, thanks to her vet Dr. Shrader. She talked to his assistant, Margie, while she was getting all the information required for this diary.
Dr Shrader said one his friends who runs a Veterinary Hospital in Centerville, VA told him a few days ago that he's 95% positive a counterfeit version of Frontline killed a 10 month old rescue dog owned by one of his clients. He saw the animal last Wednesday for a check up and to give it a final round of shots. The owners reported they applied the first vial of Frontline to the dog on Sunday night. When they returned home from work on Monday, the dog had been vomiting and was very weak. Being animal people and knowing this looked like poisoning, they rushed him immediately to the veterinarian. The vet asked them about what he might have gotten into so he could apply a possible antidote and they mentioned the Frontline application. Because he knew about the counterfeit Frontline, the vet asked them to bring the box to his office ASAP. They brought the Frontline package they bought from an online veterinary supply company and the vet immediately recognized it as one of the counterfeits. (The packaging of that counterfeit Frontline was the second image I sent you.) Although they tried to save the puppy, he died on Tuesday. The owners are allowing an autopsy to be performed because they are heartbroken and don't want to see this happen to another animal.
Dr Shrader's hair was on fire since he's heard of related two incidents to the counterfeit flea and tick products within the last week. In addition he got an email from a Vet, Dr H, who used to work in his clinic and has since moved onto to work for the FDA Animal and Veterinary Division. In Dr H's email, he said that since the EPA, who regulates the topical flea and tick products, were seeing several instances of counterfeit products, the FDA is considering that they might be seeing this in the ingested heartworm, flea and tick products. Because of the economy, many pet owners are trying to take care of their animals but with smaller budgets. So they are resorting to getting prescriptions for heartworm preventatives like Sentinel, Heartguard, Interceptor, etc from their vets and buying these meds from online distributors. The only ones Dr. S recommended as being reliable and known to sell strictly sell authentic meds were Drs Foster and Smith and 1800PetMeds which are both cheaper than what he charges. (Two weeks ago we paid $81.00 for 12 doses, 6 months for 2 wieners, of Interceptor. Dr Foster and Smith charges 47.88 for the same.)
The other thing Margie pointed out was that the EPA issued a warning to retailers in 2004 of fines they were imposing for selling counterfeit Frontline and Advantage products so this is not a new problem. What is new is that there seems to have been normal, healthy animals dying within 72 hours after using the counterfeit products. Again, remember that the EPA is still researching this and their findings may not be available for several days. But getting the word out to people who may be unknowingly using these counterfeit products ASAP is a good idea anyway.
According to Dr Shrader, what may be the problem is that one of the active ingredients in Frontline, fipronil, is sensitive to light. If exposed to light, it breaks down through the process of "photo-degeneration" into a molecular substance called fipronil-desulfinyl. Once it is broken down into a smaller molecule, it becomes as much as 10 times more toxic than fipronil because the larger molecules are broken down into smaller molecules which can then be absorbed into the skin. As the original fipronil, it is a much larger molecule that cannot permeate unbroken skin and is therefore much safer to use unless it is ingested. In the original state, fipronil is toxic to cats since because they are self grooming and use their saliva to groom themselves, they are likely to ingest it and get it into their blood stream where it can affect the central nervous system.
Most pesticides work by damaging the central nervous system of bugs. (As a neuropsychologist I have some background here in this with a heavy education in organic chemistry and neuroscience.) In larger doses, they can also damage or destroy the conduction of nerve impulse in the nervous systems of mammals, reptiles and fish. Since we humans have domesticated cats & dogs and they have become so prevalent as pets in our society, there is a "damned if you do damned if you don't" factor working here. Because of the many deadly disease we and our pets can get from fleas and ticks, we need to reduce our exposure to them as much as possible. But then there is also the problem of toxicity from flea and tic repellents and this can even extend to natural and organic flea and tick repellents as well.
I've heard from from a few friends that they refuse to use any of these types of treatments and will only use "natural and organic" treatments on their pets. The problem is that some of these "natural and organic treatments" can also be a problem if they are too weak by not providing adequate protection this is especially with pyrethrum which is derived from the chrysanthemum and turned into an extract. The synthetic versions of pyrethrum are Permethrin and Pyrethrin and these are used in several of the topical flea and tick repellants made for dogs. These should never be used around cats as they are very susceptible to the toxicity of these products. They can also be toxic to pets and humans if applied incorrectly or even used around young, small, weak, respiratory compromised and elderly humans and dogs. See here and here. People think because these things are naturally derived they must somehow be safer to which I reply "Biological terrorism". Biologically derived components can be weaponized. Anthrax, Tuleremia and the most deadly neurotoxin in existence, Botulinum, are naturally occurring substances found in soils and dust everywhere on earth. So people still should to be careful about using "Natural and Organic" as a qualifier when choosing any products as they too can carry side effects and toxicity issues if used incorrectly, around more physically fragile animals and humans or with certain pharmaceuticals. (This comes from a very strict organic gardener who understands the need for reducing pesticides in our environment.)
Dr Shrader got an updated email from Dr H at the FDA Animal & Vet Med Dept that said it's his understanding from one of the EPA vets that there should be an alert issued within the next few days to a week from the EPA about their findings but that it might go out only to the vets. There have been reports of 17 deaths that may have resulted from these counterfeit Frontline and Advantage products since May. They are still collecting samples and in a few cases, autopsy reports of dogs and a few cats that may have died from this crap. But these deaths have occurred within 72 hours of applying the counterfeits. Lord knows how many may have happened that weren't reported!
Included are scans of photos that show what the counterfeit boxes look like, as well as a comparison shot of a counterfeit box next to a real box. If you need a bigger version, let me know and I will email it to you.
Counterfeit box:
Counterfeit next to real box:
