(C) Missouri Independent This story was originally published by Missouri Independent and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . EPA pushes ahead with transfer of regulation of pet products to FDA • Missouri Independent [1] ['Johnathan Hettinger', 'More From Author', '- March'] Date: 2023-03-13 This story was originally published by Investigate Midwest. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency wants to relinquish its oversight of pet pesticide products in the wake of criticism for its handling of a popular flea and tick collar linked to more than 100,000 reports of pet injuries and deaths. Its bid to hand the job to the Food and Drug Administration caps a tumultuous period for the EPA triggered by a March 2021 Investigate Midwest/USA TODAY investigation that showed the collar has been the subject of more incident reports than any other product in EPA history. For years, EPA scientists have questioned the agency’s ability to regulate pet products because of how it has handled complaints about Seresto since it came on the market in 2012, according to Investigate Midwest/USA Today reporting. The EPA said Seresto is a “key part” but not all of the reason for the proposal. Transferring regulation to FDA is a “potential long-term solution,” said Jake Li, EPA’s deputy assistant administrator for pesticide programs, in an interview with Investigate Midwest. “We can’t play this whack-a-mole game where every time a Seresto-like incident comes up, we have to divert our staff to it,” Li said. The EPA has been conducting a formal review of Seresto for nearly two years and expects to finalize the updated science assessment in the next few months, Li said, adding that the FDA helped with the assessment, both by lending staff and a framework to evaluate post-market incident data. The work on Seresto illustrated the flaws with EPA’s process, Li said. “In our ongoing review of Seresto incidents what really became evident to us is that, compared to FDA, we at EPA have far fewer resources, which means staff, expertise, infrastructure and funding, to evaluate animal safety and carry out the ongoing monitoring of products in the marketplace,” Li said. Li said the EPA’s pesticide office has only two veterinarians on staff, and both were pulled from their regular duties to work on a review of Seresto “almost full time,” which slowed down their other jobs. The Seresto review “has poached so much time out of people who are not assigned to any of this work that we believe there needs to be a much better solution for the long term,” Li said. The agencies said in a joint whitepaper that FDA would need “significant new resources” to take over the management of the 600 topical products currently regulated by the EPA; however, the agencies said building a comparable program at EPA also would require even more resources and would be redundant with the FDA’s system. FDA spokeswoman Veronika Pfaeffle said in an emailed statement that the current set-up doesn’t accommodate scientific advancement. “A modernized approach that better aligns with each agency’s expertise will better protect animal health and safety and improve clarity for pet owners,” Pfaeffle said in the email. ‘FDA should be the one-stop-shop’ Under the current setup, the EPA is responsible for regulating pet pesticide products that are “not systemic,” or aren’t supposed to enter the bloodstream, while the FDA regulates “systemic” pet pesticide products, which are generally consumed by pets. However, the agencies said in the recent whitepaper that scientists now understand that many topical flea and tick treatments, including spot-on treatments and collars, actually do enter a pet’s bloodstream, raising questions about the EPA’s product approval process. “Both agencies agree that FDA should be the one-stop-shop for animal drugs, for these external parasite treatments and so forth,” Li said. The EPA and FDA are holding a joint virtual public meeting, titled “Modernizing the Approach to the EPA and FDA Oversight of Certain Products,” on March 22 at 12 p.m. Central to discuss the changes. People can register for the meeting here. The proposal is also open for a 60-day public comment period until April 24. “Moving this forward is a good thing, but it will take years to do. This is the beginning of a very, very long process,” said Nathan Donley, environmental health science director of the Center for Biological Diversity, which petitioned to ban Seresto. Donley expressed concern the EPA is allowing harm to continue by failing to take action on products like Seresto. “It doesn’t let the EPA off the hook,” Donley said. “They’ve got to do things now that are in their authority.” Seresto is just one product connected to major concerns about pet and human safety. In October 2022, the EPA announced it would ban flea and tick collars containing the chemical tetrachlorvinphos, which has been linked to neurological damage in children. EPA staff have also raised concerns in internal documents about pet products that contain fipronil, a chemical used in popular spot-on treatment Frontline Plus, which has been the subject of more than 5,000 human health incident reports, according to an Investigate Midwest review of incident data. Review in the works for ‘years’ EPA staff sounded alarms about the safety of Seresto as early as 2015. But the agency did not launch a formal review until after the nonprofit Center for Biological Diversity filed a petition asking the agency to cancel Seresto, following Investigate Midwest’s and USA TODAY’s reporting. Last summer, a congressional subcommittee called on the EPA to cancel Seresto’s registration, noting that Canada had rejected the collar based on the EPA’s own incident data – and the EPA found an even greater link between pet death and the collar than Canadian regulators did. [END] --- [1] Url: https://missouriindependent.com/2023/03/13/epa-pushes-ahead-with-transfer-of-regulation-of-pet-products-to-fda/ Published and (C) by Missouri Independent Content appears here under this condition or license: Creative Commons CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/missouriindependent/