Some flea-control products using counterfeit labels

Advertiser Staff

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has ordered retailers in Hawai'i and California to stop selling counterfeit flea-control products for pets. The bogus products make unauthorized use of the legitimate brand names Advantage and Frontline.

"Without proper pesticide registration, we just don't know what is being sold," said Pam Cooper, the EPA's Pacific Southwest Region pesticide section chief.

Legitimate forms of the products are manufactured by Bayer and Merial. Those companies have been informed of a flood of counterfeit products illegally imported from Asia, the EPA said.

An EPA spokesman in Hawai'i, Dean Higuchi, said the products are being sold in boxes falsely printed with EPA registration numbers and Advantage and Frontline labels. He said tests suggest some packages contain the same chemicals as the real products, but the EPA isn't certain that the strength and dosages are the same.

The instructional brochure is missing from the counterfeit products, and the pesticide applicators may lack child-proof features.

The EPA said the counterfeit products were sold by the Honolulu firm Pang & Son, and perhaps through other distributors and retailers. The following pet supply outlets have been issued orders to stop the sale of the products: City Feed, Crazy Canine, Enchanted Lake Pet Center, Feed Trough, Marina Pets, Mililani Pets, Pets Discount, Pets Plus, and Pets Unlimited.

More information about distinguishing genuine from counterfeit pesticide packages can be found at the Web site www.epa.gov/pesticides/factsheets/petproduct.htm.