New Flea and Tick Products that Work!
Anybody who has heard me talk flea products or read my recommendations for the past ten years or longer is aware that I have been reluctant to depart from my traditional recommendations of Advantage and Frontline simply because there has not been anything in the way of flea products that rival them in both safety and efficacy. Admittedly, for several years now they haven’t been near as effective as they once were. Fleas are quick to make the adjustment to new poisons and these were no exception. However the tradeoff for many of the newer products since that time has been in the area of safety. Many newer products have worked reasonably well, and that’s all they have had to do in recent years to outdo Advantage and Frontline — just a reasonable job — but really nothing has rivaled those two weapons as far as safety is concerned.
Well, after all that time, it seems we have a new class of product that is looking attractive. Isoxazolines are showing significant promise and I attended a presentation at a recent conference on the product Bravecto (fluralaner). Bravecto is available in both a cat version and a dog version. The dog version is an oral chewable tablet that is to be given to dogs at 12 week intervals. The cat version is a topical spot-on type of treatment that is to be applied once every 12 weeks. (For certain tick applications this interval can be shortened to once every 8 weeks) The report that I heard was very impressive.
The study was done here in Florida where the fleas have seen and done it all. Nothing works very well here, yet the results were nothing short of remarkable. The researchers went into a number of households where there was no existing flea control and, after performing their flea counts for study purposes, treated all of the dogs and cats in the household. They then followed up with visits to the homes where they repeatedly did flea counts to monitor the flea population and by the end of the 3-month period the flea population had been eliminated within the household. Counts were at zero! All animals were flea-free with only a single treatment. They did not do any environmental treatments, nothing else. Although the results are amazing we must keep in mind that this product is still pretty new and the fleas haven’t yet had the opportunity to adjust, but the implications of the study are pretty impressive for the near future.
If you combined their methods with a reasonable environmental treatment program, this study suggests that you should be able to maintain an effective control program by treating only once every 3 months. Not only that, but if you maintain a closed population, no pets going outdoors, it is not unreasonable to presume that you could discontinue treating after only a few treatments and still maintain control.
There are a number of other isoxazoline products on the market. The identifying suffix on the generic name is the –laner ending on the product name. So far the other brand names that I can site are Simparica, Credelio, and Nexgard. I don’t have any details on those products but they are all probably worth a look. That’s the good news.
Now the not-so-good. As with any drug or insecticidal product there is always a downside. These products are too new yet for a lot of data to be available, but there may be some possible increase in seizure activity and/or some neurologic symptoms that could be seen in some patients. Now lots of these products are already out there and the numbers at this point are still not impressive but in all likelihood there is some substance to the reports. We really should not be surprised. Seizure and neurologic issues are not rare with insecticidal products in general. Another issue which I feel is probably of greater concern, is the possible interaction with ivermectin in collies, shelties, and other breeds that carry the ABCB1 genetic variant which predisposes these individuals to various drug sensitivities, including ivermectin. Combining isoxazolines with ivermectin in these breeds is a bad idea, and there are suggestions from some ophthalmologists that it may be a good idea to avoid isoxazolines altogether in these individuals due to some possible reports of vision impairment. The jury is still out on this. I would probably play it safe and avoid these insecticides if I owned an abnormally sensitive dog. Here is one of those potential issues where the product is not the problem, but rather it’s the patient.
As I have said so many times before, no product is 100% safe. If it were, it wouldn’t do anything. But for the most part I think for the vast majority of individuals these products are relatively safe and worthy of consideration in the battle against fleas. Remember, fleas offer a much more concrete, widespread, across-the-board threat to your pet’s health than do these insecticides. There are a lot of folks out there who still consider fleas to be a “natural” part of owning pets and for those people any effort at flea control beyond the fantasy world of garlic and brewer’s yeast is considered “dangerous.” While they live in denial in their fairytale world, their miserable, bald, scabby, scratching pets (not to mention having a house full of fleas) are perfectly acceptable to them in a world where we have the means to eliminate that suffering. I’m sorry but I don’t agree. Give these new products some serious consideration, but watch closely for any possible signs of trouble.
Bravecto is not safe. It’s been known to harm many cats – damage them for life with paralysis and death. My cat was sick for a week after taking the 3 month oroduct. I though she was going to die. Turns out there is a Facebook group page with pet owners who now have dead or paralyzed pets because of this product. I would do more research before advocating for this death product. I’m so sick of dealing with fleas – you would think with today’s technology we could come up with something that doesn’t ultimately give your pets cancer from all the damn chemicals and toxins they are given. 🙁
Fiona, You make a very good point, and I’ve tried to provide some healthier alternatives. However, as I dwell on repeatedly in my book and on this website:
1) ALL drugs (and especially poisons) are dangerous – if they weren’t, they wouldn’t do anything at all! And,
2) Idiosyncratic adverse reactions happen – that’ a fact of life. But when you count the number of doses of these products out there that have been sold, those few thousand adverse reactions constitute a pretty insignificant number of cases.
That being said, I certainly understand your feelings. I always tell my clients prior to surgery that the risk of anesthesia and surgery in a healthy patient is very slight. However, if it’s your pet that dies, it doesn’t matter that your pet is one in a million. I’ve seen dogs and cats die during the most routine of procedures. Likewise, chemicals that are designed to kill selectively (i.e. kill only fleas and ticks), can, on really rare occasions, kill indiscriminately. This does not necessarily represent a defect in the product, but is more likely a defect in the patient’s constitution – i.e. a genetic hypersensitivity – and one that we unfortunately cannot predict. Years ago I had a cat that became paralyzed with the application of a particular “safe for cats” flea shampoo, and ultimately died as a result. And similarly, I once had two dog patients that became gravely ill (one of which died) from two of the safest and most routinely prescribed non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs on the market. So yes, I hear you. But, nonetheless, I maintain that all of these topical antiparasite products are relatively safe, especially when you consider the greater risks to the pet (and those in contact with it) from uncontrolled flea exposure. And we can’t “come up with something that doesn’t ultimately give your pets cancer from all the damn chemicals and toxins they are given” because it’s all those chemicals and toxins that kill the parasites and provide the protection.
And please be aware that this is one of the reasons that in my book I try to grade these products for their safety relative to one another. Advantage and Frontline have a definite leg up on the other products when it comes to safety, but even these products have the potential to kill. And actually, even some of the natural, traditionally “safe” products, such as garlic and diatomaceous earth (and which don’t really work against fleas) can also kill. It’s a dangerous world.