Popular flea collar linked to 1,700 pet deaths
Rhonda Bomwell had never used a flea and tick collar before. Pierre, her 9year-old Papillon service dog, was mostly an indoor animal.
Still, her veterinarian recommended she purchase one, so Bomwell went to the pet store near her home in Somerset, New Jersey, and selected Bayer’s Seresto collar.
A day later, on June 2, 2020, Pierre had a seizure, collapsing while Bomwell was making dinner. Lying on his back, the dog stopped breathing and his eyes rolled back.
Bomwell tried giving him CPR. Then she called the police. An officer helped her lift the dog into her car, and she rushed him to the hospital. Pierre died before he could receive medical treatment. Bomwell didn’t think to take off Pierre’s collar.
“I just didn’t put it together,” she said.
Bomwell isn’t alone. 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, Environmental Protection Agency documents show.
Yet the EPA has done nothing to inform the public of the risks.
Seresto, developed by Bayer and now sold by Elanco, works by releasing small amounts of pesticide onto the animal
for months at a time. The pesticide is supposed to kill fleas, ticks and other pests but be safe for cats and dogs.
But thousands of pets are being harmed, according to federal documents obtained through a public records request from the Center for Biological Diversity, a nonprofit organization that watchdogs the EPA as part of its work to protect endangered species. The center provided the documents to the Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting.
Since Seresto flea and tick collars were introduced in 2012, the EPA has received incident reports of at least 1,698 related pet deaths. Overall, through June 2020, the agency has received more than 75,000 incident reports related to the collars, including nearly 1,000 involving human harm.
The EPA is in charge of regulating products that contain pesticides. The agency has known about these incidents for years but has not informed the public of the potential risks associated with this product, said Karen Mccormack, a retired EPA employee who worked as both a scientist and communications officer.
Mccormack said the collars have the most incidents of any pesticide pet product she’s ever seen.
“The EPA appears to be turning a blind eye to this problem, and after seven years of an increasing number of incidents, they are telling the public that they are continuing to monitor the situation,” she said. “But I think this is a significant problem that needs to be addressed sooner rather than later.”
The EPA declined to say how Seresto compares to other pet products. But in response to a question about whether the product is safe, an agency spokesperson said in an emailed statement that the two pesticides in Seresto have “been found eligible for continued registration” based on best available science, including incident data.
This story is a collaboration between USA TODAY and the Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting. The center is an independent, nonprofit newsroom covering agribusiness, Big Ag and related issues. USA TODAY is funding a fellowship at the center for expanded coverage of agribusiness and its impact on communities.
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ALBANY, N.Y. – New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo has avoided public appearances for days as some members of his own party call for him to resign over sexual harassment allegations.
The governor hasn’t taken questions from reporters since a Feb. 19 briefing, an unusually long gap for a Democrat whose daily, televised updates on the coronavirus pandemic were must-see TV last spring.
He was last before video cameras Thursday, when he introduced President Joe Biden at a virtual meeting of the National Governor’s Association, which he chairs. He also participated Tuesday in the group’s conference call, which was off-limits to reporters.
Neither Cuomo nor his spokespeople have commented on the latest allegation made against him Monday night. A woman told The New York Times that Cuomo touched her lower back, then grabbed her cheeks and asked to kiss her at a September 2019 wedding.
Most leading Democrats have signaled they want to wait for the results of an investigation by New York Attorney General Letitia James into claims that Cuomo sexually harassed at least two women in his administration.
State Democratic Party chair Jay Jacobs, a close Cuomo ally, said it’s “premature” to opine before the investigation concludes.
That inquiry has yet to begin. James
Results of probe sought first by most leading Democrats
said her office is working to hire an outside law firm to conduct it.
U.S. Rep. Hakeem Jeffries said New York’s congressional delegation in Washington has not met on the issue but “everyone is monitoring the situation closely.”
As of midday Tuesday, at least one Democratic Congress member from Long Island – U.S. Rep. Kathleen Rice – four state senators, several left-leaning Assembly members and the leaders of the progressive Working Families Party said they have already heard enough and that Cuomo should resign. Some suggested he be impeached.
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, who has had a contentious relationship with Cuomo for years, said Tuesday that “if these allegations are true, he cannot govern.”
Former aide Charlotte Bennett, 25, said Cuomo quizzed her about her sex life and asked whether she would be open to a relationship with an older man. Bennett rejected Cuomo’s attempted apology, in which he said he’d been trying to be “playful” and that his jokes had been misinterpreted as flirting.
Another former aide, Lindsey Boylan, said Cuomo commented on her appearance inappropriately, kissed her without her consent at the end of a meeting, and once suggested they play strip poker. Cuomo has denied Boylan’s allegations.
The woman who spoke to The New York Times about Cuomo’s conduct at the wedding, Anna Ruch, hasn’t responded to request for comment from The Associated Press.
Ruch told the newspaper that when she removed Cuomo’s hand from her back, he called her “aggressive,” placed his hands on her cheeks and asked if he could kiss her. Cuomo then planted a kiss on her cheek as she turned away.
A photograph taken by a friend captured a look of discomfort on Ruch’s face as the governor held her face.
“I felt so uncomfortable and embarrassed when really he is the one who should have been embarrassed,” Ruch told newspaper.
“I felt so uncomfortable and embarrassed when really he is the one who should have been embarrassed.”
Anna Ruch Woman who says Gov. Cuomo placed his hands on her and kissed her, in an interview with The New York Times
Boy Scouts of America is proposing to pay roughly $220 million toward a trust to compensate tens of thousands of former members who say they were abused during their time as scouts, according to a statement from the committee that represents survivors in the case.
Another $300 million may come from a voluntary contribution from local councils, the Boy Scouts said in court documents filed Monday, but the local organizations have given no formal commitment.
The number is a fraction of the $1 billion of the organization’s estimated value, and a sliver of the value of its subsidiaries, including local councils as well as various trusts and endowments, which USA TODAY estimates could exceed $3.7 billion.
The proposal is part of a reorganization plan put forth by the nonprofit detailing how it intends to handle the massive child sex abuse case that’s threatening its existence – the largest ever involving a single national organization – and emerge as a viable entity.
It comes a little more than a year after Boy Scouts filed for bankruptcy in federal court in Delaware. At the time, the organization said it faced 275 lawsuits in state and federal courts plus another 1,400 potential claims. Nearly 95,000 claims were filed by the November deadline set by the bankruptcy judge.
The proposed settlement would amount to about $6,000 per claimant, even after the total number of claims is reduced after duplicates are deleted and other reviews. That number assumes an even distribution among survivors and does not reflect issues related to statutes of limitations or specific acts of abuse.
Boy Scouts says it will put forth all unrestricted cash and investments above the $75 million it says it needs to continue operations. It also will contribute its art collection, which includes original Norman Rockwell pieces, as well as two facilities in Texas and its oil and gas interests, consisting of more than 1,000 properties in 17 states.
But the proposal may be dead on arrival. The survivors’ Torts Claimant Committee (TCC) objects to the plan.
“As a fiduciary to all sexual abuse survivors, the TCC has thoroughly investigated the assets and liabilities of the BSA and its local councils,” the committee said in a statement, “and concluded that the BSA’S reorganization plan woefully fails to adequately compensate sexual abuse survivors or provide any enhanced systematic protections for future generations of Scouts.”
Gill Gayle, an abuse claimant who serves on the advisory board for the Coalition of Abused Scouts for Justice, which represents approximately 65,000 survivors in the bankruptcy, said it was only after juries began awarding survivors million-dollar verdicts that Scouts realized “the sum total of paying for their deeds exceeds their monetary value.”
Paul Mones, who tried a landmark case in 2010 that resulted in $19.9 million in damages, said that result should have been a wake-up call for the organization. Instead, he said, it is still trying to go back to business as usual.
“There was a forest fire in their backyard and they were watching television and having dinner and not thinking anything was wrong,” Mones said. “Now the forest fire is at their door and they still think, though the plan will reflect some cutting back, that they can have a plan that will not really inflict any kind of serious pain on them.”