One of the most popular flea and tick collars in America poses “too great a risk to animals and humans” and should be removed from the market, a congressional subcommittee recommended in a report released Wednesday ahead of its hearing titled “Seresto Flea and Tick Collars: Examining Why a Product Linked to More than 2,500 Pet Deaths Remains on the Market.”
The House Subcommittee on Economic and Consumer Policy, which is a part of the House Oversight Committee, the main investigative body in the U.S. House of Representatives, held the hearing Wednesday afternoon. The aim was to probe the Environmental Protection Agency’s “failure to regulate the Seresto collar as well as Elanco’s refusal to take action to protect pets and their owners from the collar’s harm.”
Owners of two deceased pets testified, as did former EPA scientist and policy analyst Karen McCormack and the environmental health science director for the nonprofit Center for Biological Diversity Nathan Donley. All spoke against the pet collar.
Jeffrey Simmons, the president and CEO of Elanco, which manufactures Seresto, also testified. He called the product safe.
"No product is without risk," Simmons told the subcommittee. "What matters is whether those risks are reasonable, in light of the benefits. Numerous studies and the incident report data for Seresto demonstrate the product does not pose an unreasonable risk."
Subcommittee Chairman Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D - Illinois) launched an investigation into the collar in March 2021, after reporting by Investigate Midwest and USA TODAY revealed the high number of incidents related to the collar, as well as the EPA’s inaction despite knowing about the issue for nearly a decade.
Investigate Midwest (The Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting) serves the public interest by exposing dangerous and costly practices of influential agricultural corporations and institutions through in-depth and data-driven investigative journalism.
