The use of toxic flea treatments for pets should be tightly restricted, the Liberal Democrats will say in parliament on Tuesday, as the chemicals kill wildlife including fish and birds.
The government is coming under pressure to control the sale of pet flea treatments containing neonicotinoids, after it effectively announced a ban on the chemicals in pesticides on farms. However, the sale of the flea treatments to pet owners is still unregulated.
Sources at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said they had commissioned the veterinary medicines directorate to look at options for potentially restricting the use of these treatments.
The Lib Dem MP Rachel Gilmour secured Tuesday’s debate in parliament and is asking ministers to come up with a plan and timeline to restrict the use of the chemicals, so they are not bought off the shelf or needlessly prescribed by vets when there are other alternatives to prevent fleas.
She said: “Cleaning up our waterways is a key mission of my party, and properly regulating the use of fipronil and imidacloprid – as well as other neonicotinoids – is part of that agenda.
“The damage that these products can do is catastrophic to our natural world, and we should be doing more to make sure that these products are not getting into our waterways. I hope to hear some constructive points from the minister about this in their response.”
Cats and dogs are widely treated with topical treatments that include insecticides to prevent fleas. Vets often recommend regular flea treatments as a preventive measure, even when dogs and cats do not have the pest. But scientists now recommend animals should not be treated for fleas unless they have them. At the moment, the treatments can be bought by anyone in pet shops around the country.
Research has found that these treatments enter rivers, killing the wildlife within, and that pet owners using them risk contaminating their hands with the chemicals for at least 28 days after applying the treatment.
A recent study found songbirds were using dog and cat fur tainted with the treatments to create their nests. The scientists found a higher number of unhatched eggs or dead chicks in nests where there was a higher incidence of insecticide.
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There is growing concern about the impact these treatments are having on biodiversity. Imidacloprid and fipronil, for example, are powerful insecticides: one monthly flea treatment for a large dog contains enough imidacloprid to kill 25 million bees. In the UK, fipronil is an ingredient in 66 different veterinary products, and imidacloprid is in a further 21. These chemicals have been banned for agricultural use since 2018, yet Environment Agency data found fipronil residue in 98% of river and lake samples, and traces of imidacloprid in 66% of all samples.
The government recently committed to banning the use of three more neonicotinoids – clothianidin, imidacloprid and thiamethoxam – from agricultural use.
