Provecta > Poison Your Pet to Poison the Tick

The Logic No One Stops to Consider - and the Safety Tests They Never Ran

Source: https://unbekoming.substack.com/p/provecta-poison-your-pet-to-poison

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Provecta does not create a barrier that repels fleas and ticks. It does not form a protective shield on your pet’s fur. The mechanism is simpler and, once stated plainly, harder to accept.

When you apply Provecta to your dog or cat, synthetic neurotoxins absorb through the skin and distribute throughout the animal’s body. The active ingredients—imidacloprid, permethrin, pyriproxyfen, or deltamethrin depending on the product—spread systemically. Any parasite that bites your pet ingests these compounds. The parasite’s nervous system is disrupted. The parasite dies.

Your pet is the delivery vehicle. The logic: poison the host to kill the parasite.

Pet owners applying these products rarely stop to consider what they’re actually doing. The packaging shows a happy dog. The label promises protection. The veterinarian recommends monthly application. Nowhere does the marketing invite you to contemplate that you are distributing neurotoxins through your animal’s living tissue so that blood-feeding parasites will be poisoned when they feed.

Once you understand the mechanism, a question follows naturally: what does chronic, repeated distribution of neurotoxins do to the host animal over a lifetime of monthly applications?

The manufacturer’s answer, buried in technical documentation: they didn’t study it.

The product information sheet for Provecta discloses that the product was not tested for carcinogenic potential, mutagenic potential, or impairment of male fertility. Female fertility testing was limited to rabbit studies. Long-term cumulative effects of repeated monthly dosing—the actual use pattern for millions of pets—remain uncharacterized in publicly available data.

These are not gaps discovered by critics. They are confessions printed by the manufacturer.

You can read the full article here > https://unbekoming.substack.com/p/provecta-poison-your-pet-to-poison

But what's the alternative; especially here, where there's loads of blighters?

2 hours ago, Bacon1 said:

But what's the alternative; especially here, where there's loads of blighters?

From the article:

... Flea and tick pressure varies dramatically by geography, season, and living conditions. An indoor apartment cat in a northern climate faces different exposure than a hunting dog in the rural South. Yet the recommendation is the same: monthly treatment, year-round, regardless of actual risk.

Alternatives exist. Environmental management—regular cleaning, yard treatment, limiting exposure to high-risk areas. Mechanical removal—regular grooming and tick checks. Targeted treatment only when infestation occurs rather than prophylactic monthly dosing. These approaches require more effort from the owner. They cannot be sold in a box.

Some animals in some environments face genuine parasite pressure. The existence of a genuine problem does not validate an unproven solution.

This Facebook-group might contain non-toxic alternative solutions:

What Pet Owners Are Reporting

The harms documented in EPA incident reports represent a fraction of what occurs. A private Facebook group, Flea & Tick Medications are Killing Our Animals, [ https://www.facebook.com/groups/475356950059066/ ] has grown to over 63,000 members—pet owners sharing experiences that rarely reach official databases. The group’s existence is itself evidence: people do not join communities like this because the products worked as promised.

One of the biggest problems with cats and dogs, at least the ones that are cared for by us humans, is their diet. And, it is up to us to make sure proper food is provided.

So much of the food they eat is not suitable. A poor diet has an effect on the skin, and this can leave them suspectable to mites, fleas and critters.

C'mon RF, we live in Thailand, keeping bugs, yoong etc, often need to use strong stuff.

I don't like to use the sprays, especially that green one(!) but there isn't any real, effective, long lasting alternative.

I use good quality Lavender & Eucalyptus oils from True Industry. ...but they return!

47 minutes ago, Bacon1 said:

C'mon RF, we live in Thailand, keeping bugs, yoong etc, often need to use strong stuff.

I don't like to use the sprays, especially that green one(!) but there isn't any real, effective, long lasting alternative.

I use good quality Lavender & Eucalyptus oils from True Industry. ...but they return!

Some of us lives in the real world and experienced what tics and parasites do to our animals, and also animals we have adopted. So let them spread their falsely claims, and let us deal with our animals as we should.

Looks like the OP has now moved on to trashing animal care, very strange indeed.......

1 hour ago, Bacon1 said:

C'mon RF, we live in Thailand, keeping bugs, yoong etc, often need to use strong stuff.

I don't like to use the sprays, especially that green one(!) but there isn't any real, effective, long lasting alternative.

I use good quality Lavender & Eucalyptus oils from True Industry. ...but they return!

A good diet should sort it out.

But if that's not possible, then use neem (Sadao in Thai) juice. There are a couple of ways to get it. One is to boil the leaves. Another is to cut the twigs off and boil them. Finally, if the fruit comes, pick the berries and crush them up.

Neem is also great for running on yer own skin; especially for working in the field. Also smear the juice on and around areas that you want to keep clear of ants.

3 minutes ago, Stiddle Mump said:

A good diet should sort it out.

But if that's not possible, then use neem (Sadao in Thai) juice. There are a couple of ways to get it. One is to boil the leaves. Another is to cut the twigs off and boil them. Finally, if the fruit comes, pick the berries and crush them up.

Neem is also great for running on yer own skin; especially for working in the field. Also smear the juice on and around areas that you want to keep clear of ants.

Mixing natural remedies doesnt make it more safe because you use natural substances.

We buy Bravecto for our animals, and have no problem. 5 dogs one cat.

8 minutes ago, Hummin said:

Mixing natural remedies doesnt make it more safe because you use natural substances.

We buy Bravecto for our animals, and have no problem. 5 dogs one cat.

Diet, just as in humans, is the most important thing. Also important; keep the animals away from toxic areas.

I wouldn't put anything on my dogs (4) and cats (10) bodies from a chemist. Even if it says on the pack it is natural; I still wouldn't use any. Natural remedies/preventions out there.

We recently tried a different oral tablet for our dogs, which turned out to "support healthy blah blah blah", rather than being an actual oral treatment. Consequently our dogs were quickly riddled with ticks. Before we switched back to the known working tablet I looked into methods of tick control.

Diet

I considered BARF, but my worry is making sure any raw meat is free of parasite eggs. While keeping them in a deep freeze at home will take care of anything hatched, it doesn't seem to be 100% effective if done at home (not completely sure why if one bought a suitable appliance), and even if I found a supplier that claimed to keep their meat below -21 C for two weeks, I probably wouldn't trust them. Then there's the reliability and cost of sourcing BARF. Cost is not such an issue for me, but to my Thai family, a dog is a dog and therefore should not cost too much.

I've been making progress in that area as we almost always have some raw beef offal, pork lung or chopped up fried chicken (last choice but treated like an occasional visit to KFC) to supplement their dry kibble. But we always cook it, then chop it, bag it and freeze it. Reliable BARF supplies we haven't found yet.

Environment

One strategy that made sense to me (I still have to set it up) required something like soaking cotton balls in permethrin and, when dry, poking them into some PVC piping located at various places along our garden's perimeter. Also to keep cut short and clear a 1m band around the garden perimeter and periodically spray with permethrin (keep the dogs away until it has dried).

The idea is that the ticks' lifecycle involves a phase when they infect small mammals (mice, rats) or birds before going for dogs and humans. The rodents are supposed to take the cotton balls to their nests to use for bedding. Thus, when the ticks enter the garden they have to first cross the 1m minefield. Any ticks carried into rodent nests should be eliminated when they touch the cotton balls.

Toxicity of common treatments

These appear to be relatively safe, but this is based on data that, according to the substack post, is not relevant. However I am suspicious of the validity of the reports of the 63000-member Facebook group (I don't do FB anyway).

What I will try next

I observed the ticks clear up quickly after being given an oral dose. As I live in a family of Thai people, the word "regular" is not part of the common vocabulary so in effect we dose when the dogs show signs of infestation.

Therefore I will get me some cotton balls and try the poisoned rodent bedding trick. We could probably manage the "minefield" too.

What we just started using, after 12 ish yrs of not using anything.

https://aseannow.com/topic/1382577-best-monthly-spot-on-flea-treatment-for-cats/#findComment-20292114