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Pet flea collars may expose children to pesticide harm
Monday, August 23, 1999 By Michael Woods, Post-Gazette National Bureau
NEW ORLEANS -- The flea collars that protect many of America's 90 million pet dogs and cats may expose young children to potentially harmful levels of pesticides, scientists reported yesterday.
Dr. Janice E. Chambers described new evidence that pesticides, which are released from flea collars and spread over an animal's coat, can be transferred to humans who touch the animal. She directs the Center for Environmental Health Sciences at Mississippi State University.
The study was one of more than two dozen in a new wave of research into children's environmental health concerns being presented at a national meeting of the American Chemical Society this week.
Chambers headed the multiyear study of pesticide exposure from flea collars, which is funded by the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency.
Some flea collars, she noted, contain the same kind of so-called organophosphate pesticides used in agriculture to kill pests on fruits, vegetables, and other crops. Such compounds, which work by disrupting transmission of nerve signals, were introduced as a replacement for DDT, which was banned in 1972.
EPA has adopted a regulatory philosophy which regards children as more vulnerable to the possible health effects of pesticides than adults. Three weeks ago EPA cited risks to children as the reason for banning most uses of one organophosphate pesticide, and tightened human exposure limits to another. EPA said that "residues," or minute amounts, of these chemicals sometimes remain on fruits and vegetables and could be harmful when consumed by children.
Chambers' research is part of a broader and little-known EPA investigation into other sources of childhood pesticide exposure that could rival or exceed pesticide exposures from food. These include contact with common household products that parents use without suspecting the existence of any risk to children.
"Many of the most toxic pesticides are sold as concentrates registered for use in pet products and other residential applications, such as disinfectants, weed killers, and insecticides for garden and lawn care," the EPA's Monica F. Spann said here. She is working with other EPA researchers to gauge the risk and find ways of reducing residential pesticide exposures in childhood.
In an interview, Chambers noted scientists do not yet know whether flea collars pose a substantial health risk to children. That, she indicated, would be a level similar to the risk that led EPA to restrict the organophosphate agricultural pesticides.
Her research has shown that pesticide compounds from flea collars do transfer to the skin of people who touch the animal's coat. The amount of pesticide spread to people varied with the kind of flea collar. One of the two main kinds checked in the tests transferred "dramatically" more pesticide than the other. Chambers declined to name the specific brands of collars used in the experiments.
Based on the findings, she suggested that parents of young children use caution, especially during the first week after applying a new flea collar, when pesticide release tends to be highest. "Don't let the kid hug and sleep with the dog while the collar is fresh," Chambers advised.
"The bottom line, for my current opinion, is that there is a potential concern regarding this source of insecticide exposure."
The EPA's regulatory philosophy calls for tightening restrictions on pesticides because children are more vulnerable to the possible health effects than adults. Children tend to have greater contact with pesticides. They eat more food per pound of body weight than adults, and consume more residues, or traces, of pesticides proportionately than adults.
As Chambers noted, they also tend to have closer contact with pesticides by hugging household pets, playing on lawns where pesticides have been applied and on floors where people have tracked pesticides in from outdoors.
Chambers and her associates have moved on to the next phase of the study, which involves analyzing urine samples from children and adults who come into contact with flea collar pesticides to see how much pesticide people absorb.
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