No more d-Con rat
poison! Good news or bad?
By Zoe Forward, DVM, Dipl. ABVP (canine/feline)
The pesticide manufacturer of d-Con has defied the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for 2 years over a 2011 reform that
requires rodenticide manufacturers to stop using long-acting anticoagulants in
products meant for residential use. The manufacturer
of d-Con is currently in a battle with the EPA over these regulations. This all sounds very official and as if d-Con
is evil, but is it?
While the EPA states that the anticoagulant products “pose
unreasonable risks to children, pets and wildlife,” toxicology expert and
veterinarian Dr. Ahna Brutlag (assistant director for Pet Poison Helpline) says
she’d rather contend with d-Con, all things considered. These long-acting anticoagulants are products
we as veterinarians are well familiar with. They have a defined diagnostic test
to let us know if a pet has been poisoned, and there is an antidote.
Still, it sounds like d-Con and all other anticoagulant
rodenticides are awful products. No doubt we
would prefer our pets never be poisoned.
BUT because rodenticide manufacturers can no longer use anticoagulants,
they have turned to a product called bromethalin. Bromethalin
is a serious problem! There is no diagnostic test to allow veterinarians know
if a pet has been exposed to bromethalin and there is no antidote. Let me repeat that: there is no antidote! Most pets will die when exposed to
bromethalin, and we may not know for certain that a pet died of this type of
poison until a necropsy is done. I’m not
sure about you, but I do not see how this change from d-Con type products is
mitigating the risks of my pet or child accidentally ingesting rat poison.
What about bait
stations? This is the EPA’s response to try to make rat poison exposure to
pets and children lower, considering use of bromethalin. The EPA reforms require all consumer products
be tamper-resistant to make them less of a risk to animals and kids. There are two problems with this. First, bait stations are less effective in
controlling rodent infestations. Rodents
are suspicious of stations. That means
people will turn to other products or take the flavored poison blocks out of
the station. Second, dogs will eat
anything. Recent studies have found that in most cases of exposure to these new
tamper-resistant stations, a large percentage of dogs eat the bait. They chew through the bait stations’ plastic
and inside are often bags or free floating blocks of poison. These bags of product may hold up to a pound of blocks. 
Products still
available now? For right now we can
still get d-Con until a hearing scheduled for later this year between the EPA
and the manufacturer of d-Con. There is
doubt that d-Con is going to win this hearing to keep its product on the
market, which means almost all rodenticides as of the end of this year will
contain bromethalin.
Our recommendation. Our best recommendation is not to use bait
stations or rat poisons at all in any household with pets. There are no safe rat poison products. Dogs and cats will eat anything. Now with the increased danger of most rat
poisons to contain bromethalin in the future, the risk is even higher that a
pet will die if exposed.
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