Health
Watchdog group petitions EPA to ban Seresto pet collar after thousands report harm
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EPA data has linked Seresto flea and tick collars to about 1,700 pet deaths.
Investigate Midwest (https://investigatemidwest.org/tag/bayer/)
EPA data has linked Seresto flea and tick collars to about 1,700 pet deaths.
We now have an admission of guilt from EPA that it wrongly issued 2018 dicamba registrations for Bayer's XtendiMax herbicide, BASF's Engenia herbicide and Corteva's FeXapan herbicide. New acting assistant administrator for EPA's Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention Michal Freedhoff said as much to EPA staffers in an internal e-mail on March 10 that read in part:
The lawsuit cites reporting from the Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting and USA TODAY that showed the EPA has received tens of thousands of reports linking the collar to incidents of injured pets.
A Congressional subcommittee has asked Elanco to voluntarily recall its Seresto flea and tick collars, following a March 2 Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting and USA TODAY story on thousands of incident reports about pet and human harm linked to the use of the collar.
The pesticides glyphosate and dicamba, both in products produced by Bayer (formerly Monsanto) have made headlines in the past year as lawsuits mount against the company for damages from these products.
Last month Bayer AG offered up its latest Goldilocks offer to settle potential future lawsuits from plaintiffs claiming Roundup herbicide gave them cancer. Bayer is hoping the deal will be judged “just right” by Northern District of California judge Vince Chhabria who after poking through Bayer's first bowl of porridge decided it too hot if not downright unlikely to pass constitutional muster.
The online retailer made its announcement after reporting from the Midwest Center and USA Today showed tens of thousands of incidents of harmed pets and nearly 1,700 pet deaths linked to the popular collar.
Seresto, one of the most popular flea and tick collars in the country, has been linked to hundreds of pet deaths, tens of thousands of injured animals and hundreds of harmed humans, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency documents show.
Yet the EPA has done nothing to inform the public of the risks.
In a normal year we would be debating several worthy agricultural stories as the most important. We certainly would be taking a hard look at the continuing dicamba herbicide saga. 2020 saw the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit de-register dicamba formulations in the middle of the growing season from Bayer AG, Corteva, and BASF because of shoddy regulatory control at the Environmental Protection Agency:
A jury awarded Bader Farms $250 million in punitive damages after finding Monsanto and BASF knew dicamba would harm crops. A judge reduced the amount.