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So, now you are ready for
weapons of “vast destruction”. You go for
big guns. You will start using
poison to
back of
neck. That ought to take care of them, if
fleas come along first, before little hands. Of course,
liquid can be absorbed into
skin of
pet getting into his blood stream and going to all parts of his body. Most hearts and livers don’t really require poisons. How about yourself, did you absorb any? Did you breathe in any vapors? Does
product continue to emit vapors? If you can smell it, maybe you already know that
vapors are there. Keep in mind that many of
spot treatments contain chemicals that are known to be neurotoxins. Like most of
population, you did not read
label, nor would you recognize
names of any neurotoxins. And you probably would not know that neurotoxins can affect
brain. Your pet may develop a twitch from a neurotoxin. Don’t you wonder if
same thing could happen to you? While
pet is in
most danger from this,
person applying it is not home free! This stuff can rub off and be distributed anywhere in
environment of
pet, affecting any life form in this environment. It is important to realize that
difference between poisons to kill fleas and poisons to kill higher life forms is simply
size of
dose. Since our bodies can store and accumulate poisons from
environment, we have no way of knowing what could be in store for us as a result of exposure to these poisons.
Recently, there were more than 28,000 sites, on just one search engine, on
internet related to pesticide poisoning from flea products. No matter what
reasons were,
poisoning happened because
products were available, and a reasonably logical person thought them safe for use. We readily accept whatever we are used to seeing. Harmful flea products are in
mainstream of our lives. Just go to any big food store, home improvement store, drug store, pet food store, and yes, even
Walmart, and you can find an arsenal for combating fleas.
Until 1990, I used everything available for flea control. After many bad experiences, I realized that I was declaring chemical warfare on my pets, my home, my yard,
environment, and on myself as well. Knowing that this had to stop, if I were going survive, I set out to find a pesticide-free way to keep fleas off my cats. My first step was to eliminate everything that had not worked for me in my war against fleas. So, I had to forget all
flea products that I knew about. Living in Florida, meant combing off
fleas every hour if
cats went out on
screened porch, but I did it, in addition to wearing out a good vacuum cleaner. After a couple of years of trial and error, I developed a simple, cheap, and safe method that is so effective that
cats seem to be “invisible to fleas”. Not only am I happy to be able to keep fleas off my cats, but I feel good about giving up my life of crime against
environment.
There are many sites on
internet where you can find out all
names of
harmful chemicals used in flea products. Anti-pesticide groups offer a lot of valuable information, as does
NRDC (National Resource Defense Council) and
CDC (Center for Disease Control). Even some animal rescue organizations post warning against certain products. Personally, I think that
terms KEEP OUT OF THE REACH OF CHILDREN and WASH YOUR HANDS AFTER HANDLING should give us
clues we need. Plain and simple, do not use these products, there is something unsafe about them. Trust me,
manufacturer is not just adding this information to make
label larger. There had to be a law somewhere that forced them to put these warnings on. Restrictions of this sort don’t surface until harm has been done, and until a lot of action has been taken by environmental groups. Your best course of action is to do
research yourself. Do not wait for
mainstream (corporate) media to inform you about what to use to keep fleas off your pet. The information that they decide you should have is influenced by advertising dollars from
chemical industry.
Visit
NRDC flea product information sites and some Anti-pesticide group sites. They can be real eye openers. While you are looking at their sites, I hope you will take a few minutes to visit
KEEP FLEAS OFF site at: http://www.liquorman.net/keepfleasoff/
I suggest that you download information concerning
flea poisons, and use it as a guide to help protect your environment. After all, we are not just what we eat, but what we absorb through our skins and what we breathe into our lungs. Once a substance gets into your bloodstream, it has access to every cell that you own. One of
few powers, that you still have, is
power to control
environment in your home, USE IT!

Artist (clay and glass), origionally from NC, but living in Florida for 20 years. Except for a few years she has always lived with cats.