Thread: How often do you worm?

Originally Posted by jckkerrison

One of our vets always says to people who query the necessity of worming its for our benefit more than the animals,especially for roundworms,toxoplasmosis can be a very
touchy subject,especially when you know of a child who was very close to loosing their sight through it....

Wondered about this, as our vets do not recommend periodic worming. We have fecal tests done once or twice a year, and most of ours do not go out at all. However, even the MC mix that we took in as a stray and that continued to go out on a rope in the yard, was never wormed and never had any worm issues. In fact, he didn't have any even when he was catching and eating rodents for his subsistence.

The problem I have with both worming and applying products like Frontline are that they are all pesticides and toxic to cats and humans to some degree. In fact the US and Candian EPAs began studying pet pesticides last year due to an apparent increase in side effects being reported. The main US EPA site for this is here:
EPA Evaluation of Pet Spot-On Products: Analysis and Mitigation Plan | Pesticides | US EPA

While I recognize that these products have benefits and may be necessary in some situations, I am afraid that far too many people think of them as "medicines" rather than realizing that they are routinely dousing their animals with pesticides. (Those hormones that interrupt the flea life cycle are safe.) In the US, hundreds of cats and dogs each year suffer serious side effects (including death) from pet parasite control products. The above site has 2008 data on various products available here:
http://www.epa.gov/pesticides/health...ductsders.html
Looking at the report on Advantage for cats, for example, we see that over 670 cat incidents were reported to the EPA by vets in 2008. The vast majority were minor but also "only 7...deaths."