Protect Pets from Microchip Pain, Illness, Exploitation

Find Out About Pet Microchips – Protect Your Pet from Pain, Illness and Exploitation

What are the real risks and the benefits of implanting a microchip in a pet? Who should make the decision about the implant and what kind of microchip to use?  Our intent here is to provide the person responsible for the care of the pet with information on the risks and adverse effects of pet microchips and programs that are not readily available elsewhere.  If you want warm, fuzzy reunification stories, you will not find them here.  There are already plenty of those fluff pieces elsewhere.  We will tell you of things not so nice.

Microchip identification is promoted as a means of returning a lost pet to it’s owner.  Would that not be a matter for a guardian who has a pet at risk for getting lost?  So why are there programs mandating them for all?  Who is promoting such invasive control of our personal business?  It seems that risk assessments done by government agencies and authorities favor security over health and privacy.  Is that in the best interest of the pet, their guardian and the community?  Who are these microchip zealots and why are they imposing these Draconian mandates on our pets?

One does not have to look far for answers.  Acquiring customer data on the Pet Industry is certainly Big Money. The Medical Industry can promote and sell pet microchips without disclosing the harmful side effects because they are pet medical devices.  The harmful side effects are marginalized by special interests who advise veterinarian organizations and consumers that the benefits are well worth the risks.  The convenience of such a tracking system has appeal.  Certainly those who manage animals would want to believe they do no harm.

And who pays for this convenience?  Pets and their guardians.  Our pets pay with their pain and their health and we pay with our hearts, our privacy and our wealth.

So what can you do about it anyway?   We will attempt to answer that here.

It is suggested that pet guardians ask the following questions of the manufacturer before implanting their product in a pet:

• • What percentage of pets implanted with the pet microchip are ever returned to their owner by that method?
  • What are the rates of failure, migration and reaction for the microchip implant?
  • What is the typical inflammatory response to the implant of the microchip in terms of the duration of the acute and recovery phases and does it return to the original level or just within some norm?
  • What are the specifications for the encapsulants of the microchip and what methods of quality control are used to assure acceptable levels of potential toxins?
  • What are the specifications for the magnetic potential of the microchip and how do electromagnetic forces effect them?
  • What are the rates of cancer for pets implanted with the microchip as compared to those without?

We hope guardians who choose to implant their pets will find the information here useful to choose a microchip that would be the safest and what considerations a pet with a microchip needs.  There is no lack of information on the subject and it is challenging to organize in a concise manner.  Links are provided to references so you can look for yourself and decide.  Leave us a comment on the blog if you have something to add.  We hope you will take the time to find out what you need to know to protect your pet.

There is a whole lot of Bullchip around about pet microchips.

Who does not have trouble sorting through the information technology has provided to us?  Investigative reporter Sharyl Attkisson knows how difficult this is and makes it her business to empower people with the understanding of the manipulation and misinformation game powered by Big Money.

Anyone who watches TV probably sees advertisements for pharmaceuticals showing a happy family in the sunshine, together because their loved one takes their drug.  You would want to take that drug,  just to make sure you could be in that picture.   But in the background you can hear the side effects and anyone who listened, would only take that drug if it there was no other viable alternative.

We hear the happy reunification stories.  But there is no requirement for pet microchip manufacturers to inform consumers of the harmful side effects.   The packaging must show only the manufacturer or distributor.  The promotions and advertising for these products comes from various sources that cannot be held accountable.  So how much is misinformation?

Here are some common Bullchips about pet microchips:

Bullchip 1:  A microchip is the size of a grain of rice.  It is sometime said to be smaller than a grain of rice.  Some will say approximately and they will give you a picture, where that is clearly not true.   Various standard pet microchips are reported to be from 11 to 13 mm in length.  Half an inch is 12.7 mm.  Pet microchips are significantly larger than an average grain of rice.  The volume of the microchip in this picture is 3.5 times that of the grain of rice.

Bullchip 2:  A microchip is injected just beneath the skin (subcutaneously) and implant causes little pain.   Implant technique recommendations have become more invasive to address implant migration failures, calling for injecting microchips into the subcutaneous tissues using specially designed syringes, intentionally causing inflammatory response for the production of scar tissue.  Inflammatory responses continue until scar tissue is formed around the chip.  Studies on horses are used as the basis for short (three days) inflammatory response claims, while procedures are done on pets including small kittens and puppies.  Humans are reporting swelling and bruising at the time of implant, two to four weeks for scar tissue to form and itching and pinching sensations for up to two years.

Bullchip 3:  Microchips save lives.  Pets that have microchips may be more often returned to their owners after being lost.  Shelters may also retrieve more of their rescued pets after bad adoptions as a result of them having microchips.  These lives are considered saved.  However, the retrievals leave fewer opportunities for adoptions and less space in shelters.  At the end of the line, as long as the lost females are spayed, euthanasia due to overpopulation of adoptable pets is all the same.

Bullchip 4:  The risk of microchips causing cancer is insignificant.  The reporting on tumors is deceptive because reporting is not generally required and only tumors that grow on the microchips are considered.  Cancer rate and chronic inflammatory disease studies are missing from the analysis.

Bullchip 5:  Microchip implants are passive devices that only activate by a scanner.   The implanted device consists of an antenna, capacitor/tuner and chip.  Only selective frequencies are allowed to activate the chip that modulates the field in a manner that is read by the scanner as backscatter.   However, the antenna is not a selective receiver and can intercept, generate current with, and re-radiate other electromagnetic waves in the environment even if the chip itself is not activated.   The components of pet microchips can consist of ferrous materials and so there are also hazards from MRI and magnets.  There are potential hazards from stray electromagnetic fields.

Bullchip 6:  Microchips consist of electronic components encased in bio-compatible glass.  These are the chips most commonly displayed.  However, manufacturers have added polymers to bond (interact) with the tissues of the animal to prevent migration.  These polymers can contain all kinds of toxins as impurities that migrate to the surface over time.  Bio-bond is a porous polypropylene.  Datamars has introduced an entirely polymer encapsulated pet microchip with an undisclosed composition.  Their patent suggests it is a silicon filled polyester.  Parylene C (AKA chlorinated poly-dimethybenzene) has also become a coating for pet microchips, with no cancer studies available.

Bullchip 7:  90% of lost animals would not be recovered without ID.   Most lost pets can be recovered by their owners without the use of any form of ID and most lost pets are recovered.   Pet populations with up to 95% of pets implanted with microchips show that fewer than 10% of lost pets with microchips are ever returned to their owner by their chip.

THIS PAGE CONTAINS INFORMATION ON:
–Health Effects
–Lost Pets
–Background (Risk Assessments)
–Broken Information Chain
–The Problem with Microchip Mandates
–Compounded Veterinary Procedures
–Cats Versus Dogs
–Failures of the Microchip Tracking System
–Alternative ID Methods
–Recommendations for a Pet Friendly Community
–Inside the Microchip

HEALTH EFFECTS

Pet microchips can cause pain and illness through acute and chronic inflammation, toxins in encapsulants and electromagnetic effects.  These are significant effects and should not be marginalized.

When a microchip is implanted in a cat or dog they suffer pain through acute inflammation for around three days.  The inflammatory response continues for approximately a month until the implant is covered with scar tissue so animals need care and considerations for some time after implant.  Implant techniques into the pets tissues and plastic coatings are intentionally designed to be inflammatory, to cause the inflammatory response that covers the microchip with scar tissue.  The American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) sites an independent study on beagles where only 87 of 90 implants formed the scar tissue.  So what happens with the inflammatory response when no scar tissue forms?  Does it never start or never stop?  So how much does the microchip implant increase the level of inflammation in a pet?

The plastics used as sleeves or to coat or encapsulate microchips can contain toxins that migrate to the surface over time, releasing into the pet.   Parylene C is chlorinated poly-dimethybenzene and so benzene would be incorporated into the polymer chain.  One should consider the ways that benzene causes cancer when considering the safety of the polymer as well as any impurities in parylene C.  Promoters will tell you it is safe, that it is inert.  Being inert is also one of the outstanding characteristics of Benzene.

Plastics are also used in place of glass.  Patents held by one manufacturer of such a microchip describe plastic encapsulants as silicone with a polyester sheath.  There are no substantial regulations and little restriction on what materials can be implanted in a pet as a microchip coating or encapsulant.

Cancer studies on these materials may not actually be useful because the impurities in them depend a lot on how they are manufactured.  The pet microchip industry has virtually no regulation.  Specifications and quality controls are left to the manufacturers discretion.

These plastic coatings are said to be put on pet microchips to prevent migration, a major failure of the microchip system.  There are no third party studies that show any of them actually do that.   The use of such coatings leads to questions about experimentation.

Glass is a non-crystalline amorphous solid.  It can contain impurities also. Although the diffusion of them to the surface is very slow, there are still issues.  Lead is commonly added to glass to make it easier to process.  What are the protections from the use of lead in the glass of pet microchips?  Just what is bio-compatible glass?  One manufacturer gives heavy metal specifications for their pet microchip transponder glass as, “The heavy metal content for the elements lead, cadmium, mercury and hexavalent chromium is below 100 ppm.”   That would be 0.01%.  Does the pet guardian know to ask for specifications on the glass used for their pet’s microchip?  And just what should they be?

Pet microchips can be made with ferrous materials that give them magnetic potential.  Human microchip tests for magnetic potential are described in the FDA Guidelines.  Pet guardians are not advised of the dangers, here.  Are they warned not to use magnetic pain therapy for their pets?  The AVMA reports that surrounding tissue is not damaged during MRI, but conflicting reports exist elsewhere and MRI manufacturers give warnings.  There are questions about MRI safety due to movement, also.  Pets should have more rigorous standards for magnetic potential than humans.  But they have none.  There are no regulations on magnetic potential for pet microchips.  The magnetic potential of three different microchips are shown in the following:

Claims that pet microchips are passive, activating only when scanned may be in part true about the actual microchip but the implant also has an antenna.  The antenna is not a selective receiver and can intercept, generate current with, and re-radiate other electromagnetic waves in the environment.  If the wave received by the antenna is tuned out before the microchip, it is simply re-radiated.  Electromagnetic waves in our environment are of health concerns as they can cause oxidative stress to our cells .  Implanting a microchip, that has an antenna, in a pet would need to be considered as to having an adverse effect on their health.

There are standards for pet microchip implant sites, radio frequencies and scanners, but none that protect pets from toxins in encapsulants or set limits for magnetic potentials and electromagnetic effects.

Adverse events reported relating to pet microchip implants include chip failure, migration, abnormal mass and tumor formation, infection, rejection and death at levels higher than originally believed (see Background).

Medical microchips implanted in a sick person to manage or cure illness can benefit their health.  Implanting microchips in an otherwise healthy animal only creates illness.

LOST PETS

We are told that the benefit of the pet microchip system is to return the pet to it’s guardian and protect them from being euthanized in shelters or otherwise lost to them.  It is also used to hold people accountable for pets that do harm.  How many will actually benefit from this?  With all the data collected, we are presented with virtually no hard facts.  Some companies will tell you how many reunions they have had, but they avoid the issue of how many pets with microchips were lost and never found.  Available surveys suggest that the information on pet loss is accurate, but that the percentage of lost pets found by microchip ID is actually quite low.  It is an issue of perception and a game of lost and found pets that the microchip industry uses to frighten people into overlooking the harmful side effects of microchips and implanting them in their pets.

We look at two surveys to tell us what is happening.  One set of surveys is done by The Dogs Trust of the United Kingdom, covering the compulsory implant of dogs there.  The other is a 2012 ASPCA survey.  The UK focus is on found dogs.  The ASPCA survey is on lost pets.  These two studies highlight the difference between the pets that people lose and the pets that the authorities find.  Another issue to watch is the time basis as being annual or some other length of time such as over the lifetime of a pet. The lifetime basis is confusing because pets and strays have different life expectancies.  We will use 14 years in our calculations.  The other issue is how percentages and fractions of the population are portrayed.

The United Kingdom has made microchip implant, registration and adverse event reporting compulsory for approximately 8.5 million dogs.  It went into effect starting in 2015.  Proponents announced the success of the program in 2017.  They reported 95% of the population implanted and reductions in strays and euthanasia. However, the data in their report shows a annual benefit from microchip implant to be only about 0.2% of the dogs in the UK and the success of the program actually came from spay/neuter programs that were ramped up as the mandates were imposed. (See The Betrayal of Dogs Trust).

The UK surveys show a microchip recovery benefit of less than 3% for an average dog, over its lifetime.

Survey Year Ending March 31st	2017	2018
Strays	66,277	56,043
MC Returns Surveyed	6,910	5,775
Total Returns Surveyed	14,309	10,551
Total Returns Reported	32,434	22,325
Estimated MC Returns	15,704	12,219
MC Returns per Dog Implanted	0.194%	0.151%
Lifetime Return Benefit	2.72%	2.12%

How this translates to reduced euthanasia is questionable because returns reduce adoptions.  There is a difference between the macro effects on the population and the micro effects of how the return to owner of an individual dog is impacted by microchip implant.  If the owner of a lost pet adopts another pet when they cannot find their original pet, there is no macro effect on euthanasia due to overpopulation.  However, the individual pet with a microchip that is more likely to be returned to owner has some survival advantage over a pet that must rely on adoption under such circumstances.  In a no-kill community, that advantage in minimal.

With the population reduction, the euthanasia rate had dropped to 3%.  If the return to owner benefit is not offset by reduced adoption, it amounts to a euthanasia benefit of 0.007% of the population on an annual basis (approximately 600 dogs).  Over the lifetime of a dog, there would be a 3% return to owner benefit and a 0.09% euthanasia benefit to an individual dog.  So a dog may be lost, but not likely euthanized as the UK system is already a no-kill system by US standards.

Those who want to believe in microchip magic for stray population control may harbor beliefs that there are undocumented returns to owner going on that have reduced the stray population.  However, the methods used in the surveys done in the UK include the returns done outside the shelter system and give it as 1/3 of the total.  There is also an ASPCA survey in which those are covered.

In the UK survey, approximately 95% of the population is implanted with a microchip.  In the ASPCA survey 20% of the lost pets had microchips.  Both surveys show similar return benefits from ID.

A 2012 survey of approximately 1,015 pet guardians reported by the ASPCA also gives an idea of how many pets benefit from having ID.   According to the data in the study, less than 2% of pets would have recovery benefit from mandated microchip implant ID over their lifetime.   It is reported that 14% of dogs and 15% of cats may get lost in a 5 year period.  On a 14 year basis, the data in the study shows that 39% get lost, 30% get recovered without ID, 3% get recovered by ID, and an additional 2% might be recovered if they had ID.  There are 4% not recovered that did have microchip ID.

Approximately 85% of the lost pets are recovered by various methods.  Even without recovery by ID, the recovery of lost pets is 76%.  Dogs were mostly found by neighborhood search and returns and cats mostly found their own way home.

The ASPCA Survey recovery rate of lost pets without ID of 76% is a whole lot different than the 10% implied by HomeAgain claims that 90% of lost animals would not be recovered without ID.  The company has been in the pet microchip business for decades and boasts of 2 million reunions, not specifying the time range or geography.  Nor do they tell you how many pets have been in their database.  They claim to reunite 14,000 pets with their owners every month.  However, that rate reflects only 0.04% per year of the pet population.  Are they selling bullchips?

The ASPCA study includes household with multiple pets and pets that get lost multiple times.  The data is based on the number of pets.  Data from the study on lost and recovered pets is summarized as follows :

Survey of 5 Year Period	Dogs	Cats	Total
Total Survey	815	503	1318
Lost	110	74	184
Not Recovered	9	19	28
RECOVERIES, Total	101	55	156
Neighborhood (Search & Return)	56	16	72
Shelter	6	1	7
ID	15	1	16
Self	20	32	52
Other	4	5	9
Lost, % of Total Survey	13.5%	14.7%	14.0%
Recovered, % of Survey	12.4%	10.9%	11.8%

The information in the ASPCA study is based on 5 years and we will adjust it to 14 years as the average pet lifespan, in our discussions to be on the same basis as advertised loss percentages typically given as 30-40%.   The data suggests that 3% of pets would be recovered by ID over an average 14 year lifetime and 6% of pets would remained lost.  Would those 6% benefit from having ID?

The  data from the study shows that 36  of the 184  lost pets had microchips, but does not show how many recovered pets had them.   With some small discrepancy in the survey data, it appears that all 16 pets recovered by ID had microchips and that the other 20 pets with microchips were among the 28 pets that were not recovered.  The data shows 72% of the lost pets had ID and 20% had microchips.  If all pets recovered by ID were recovered by their microchip ID, it would indicate a microchip recovery rate of 44% for the lost pets in the study.  However, only 8 of the unrecovered pets did not have ID, so the potential gain for having all pets with ID is only 1.7% over an average 14 year life of a pet.  If microchip recovery rates are applied, that is less than 1%.

So with 3% recovered by ID and 6% remaining missing what is happening?  What happened to those 20 pets with microchip implants and 8 that did not?   Maybe someone found them and just decided to keep them.  There are many possibilities.

But it is a sad fact that the reason many animals are not recovered is death on the roadways.  It is reported that 1.2 million dogs and 5.4 million cats are killed each year in the US.  Considering a pet population of 184 million, that could be estimated as 300 million including stray and feral cats and dogs, that comes to 2% per year and a chilling 31% over the average life of a pet.  We think this sounds a bit high.  But insurance companies track road accidents with larger animals like deer and Wikipedia cites 1.25 million insurance claims  per year for large animals.  These numbers  more than explain the pets not recovered in the ASPCA survey and exceeds the US annual euthanasia rates of 0.67 million dogs and 0.86 million cats.

Pets lost to death on the roadway is something pet microchip promoters do not figure in the potential benefit of pet microchips.  The ASPCA study suggests that the pet loss in the roadway could be as high as 5% over the lifetime of a pet.  The majority of cats and dogs lost in the roadway would be stray and feral to make up to the 31%.

Pet guardians should not be given the a false sense of security to allow their pets to roam.  No form of ID will protect them on the roadway.

So in summary, the ASPCA survey shows 39% of pets get lost during their lifetime, 30% get recovered without ID, 3% get recovered by ID, and an additional 1-2% could be recovered if they had ID but 4-5% are not recovered.  The study does not say what type of ID the pet was recovered by.  The potential microchip recovery benefit indicated by the ASPCA study is 1% – 5%, certainly consistent with the 2% – 3% observed in the UK surveys.

HomeAgain Claims that 33% of pets get lost (during their lifetime)  and 90% of the lost pets will not be recovered without ID.

The ASPCA study says 39% of pets get lost during their lifetime and 24% of the lost pets will not be recovered without ID.

To HomeAgain’s 90% claim we say, BULLCHIPS!

To further examine their claims:

• • 1 in 3 pets will get lost during their lifetime
  • 10 million pets get lost every year
  • Without ID, 90% of lost pets never return home
  • HomeAgain reunites pets with their owners every month (14,000)

To make the first two statements consistent, you either need to use a very short lifetime or a global population.  If you use the 184 million for the USA population, the lifespan is only 6 years.  We will assume the 14 year lifespan and then their population basis would be 420,000,000 pets.  Then the 10 million annual pet loss is 2.4% and we would agree.  So the 10 million per year pet loss appears to be a global number.  The 14,000 pets per month comes to 168,000 pets per year of the 10,000,000 lost of the total population of 420,000,000 pets.   So they think we should implant 420 million pets to improve the 0.04% per year that benefit from the HomeAgain microchip system, to what?  The UK data suggests the potential improvement is no more than 0.2% per year of the total population.  So you would recover 840,000 pets per year with the entire world pet population implanted with microchips.  That is 8.4% of lost pets.  The 90% claim is just plain fear mongering Bullchips.

And if this all sounds like double talk, that’s because it is.  The microchip claims do not address the question of how many lost pets will get recovered by their microchip ID.  So why do they avoid clearly stating what the benefit of their product is ?

The UK lifetime return to owner benefit is around 3% and if 30-40% of the UK dogs get lost during their lifetime, the recovery rate is less than 10% of lost dogs who have microchips.  Maybe this is why microchip companies are not publishing their rates of return of lost pets with microchips?  Other surveys indicate it is over 30%.  If you are not confused by now, you have not been paying attention. It is a shell game of lost and found pets.  So we will create the case of Community X where pets are lost and found to illustrate the game.

Community X has 1,000,000 pets.  40% of them get lost over an average lifetime of 14 years.  75% of lost pets are easily returned without ID, by such as neighborhood returns (dogs) and self returns (cats) and 10% are returned by various ID.   Let’s assume all pets and 30% of strays have microchips and 3% of the total pet population will be returned by that method, with external microchip returns of 30% of the shelter microchip returns.

Community X – Total Pets 1,000,000	14 Year (Lost)	Annually (Lost)	Annual Shelter (Found)
Lost, 40%	(400,000)	(28,571)
Easily Returned W/O ID	300,000	21,429
Easily Returned by Tag ID	10,000	714
Returned by MC ID	30,000	2,143	1,648
Recovered by Misc	10,000	714	714
Never Recovered	50,000	3,571	500
Surrenders	N/A	N/A	6,000
Strays W/O Owner	N/A	N/A	18,000
TOTAL	0	0	26,862

Although our case is hypothetical, it is consistent with both surveys on lost and found pets.   While it may be true that 30-40% of pets get lost during their lifetime, when that basis is used, the microchip recovery rate is very low because most are returned without even scanning for a microchip.  There are surveys that say the pet microchip return rate is around 30-40% but that is for found pets, not lost pets.  The microchip recovery rate for lost pets is around 10% and the benefit to a pet over an average lifetime is only around 3%.  With the benefit well established, the higher the lost pet rate claimed by microchip promotions, the lower the lost pet recovery rate is.  So it is something they just do not talk about.

It is only some of the “Never Recovered” pets who may become part of the stray population and the split shown in the hypothetical case is somewhat arbitrary and would be for a shelter with a 98% save rate ?.  But if the shelter cannot adopt out and TNVR enough pets, it may be lower than that.   “Never Recovered” pets live as strays or shelter residents, find another home or get adopted or they perish by euthanasia, disease, predators or road deaths.   But the numbers are just not there for them to be the main source of the overpopulation problem.  The following diagrams the flow of lost pets and shows the interaction with strays.

In Community X, only 2, 862 of the 26,862 pets (11%) that pass through the shelter system are lost pets.  The majority of pets that become problems and enter the shelter system are predominantly pets that do not have guardians so returns to owner just do not work for the majority of them.

The differences between lost and found pets are used to bias animal rescues and shelters into believing microchip implants are universally beneficial.  The numbers advertised are for lost pets and microchip recoveries perceived are for found pets.  Perceptions in shelters and veterinaries are further biased because microchip recoveries require readers that the general public does not have to do the returns without bringing them into those places.

There is an abundance of evidence that these implants are harmful to pets, yet the campaigns of misinformation and manipulation march on.  There is also emerging evidence that the health effects on pets effects the general population and raises the level of infectious disease.  Some of that would also translate to human health in the community.  The microchip implant technology is not appropriate for humans or their companion animals.  What we may actually need are laws protecting humans and pet from mandates.  Raise the issues. Pet microchip programs and mandates are faux animal welfare programs that actually create animal rights abuses and are a threat to human rights and welfare.

The tactics used to promote microchip programs include grant funding for spay/neuter programs that incorporate microchip implants for management, for pets through shelter programs. The spay/neuter programs are funded because they produce results. What the microchip program produces is another matter.

The tactics also include intimidation.  Do not expect your veterinarian to fight for your pet.  Do not blame them for hiding behind matters of “clinical significance” and the like.  The special interests involved in this have plenty of money and power for frivolous lawsuits to destroy their practices and lives.   You may get some of the same treatment.   It is the UK Authorities who have set the precedent that microchips are harmless so that even if they stop working, removing them would be considered an unnecessary surgery.  Even if you suspect they are making your pet sick, you may be challenged on clinical significance.   You will need to get the facts and do what you need to do to protect your pets.

Here are Twelve Things You Can Do To Protect Pets

1. Share information on the dangers and adverse effects of microchips.  Contact your local shelter and rescues with information. Also contact you county and state representatives.  Make sure they know you do not want microchips forced on pets because of the pain, illness and exploitation associated with them. Ask them the questions listed at the beginning of the Pet Microchip Information page.   Send them a link to this website and ask them what they think.  Tell them about the FRAUD and the Betrayal of Dogs Trust.  Suggestions#1
2. If your pet has a microchip and any adverse effects that may be related, report it in an adverse events report to the FDA.  Suggestions#2
3. Refuse to contribute to pet charities who promote microchips without informing pet owners of the risks.  Tell them why.  Suggestions#3
4. Challenge pet cancer organizations to study the rate of cancer in pets with and without microchips.  Suggestions#4
5. Challenge veterinarians and veterinary organizations to update their risk assessments of microchips based on current adverse event reporting, risky products being introduced into the market and the current understanding of inflammatory and auto-immune disease.  Suggestions#5
6. Demand veterinary organizations review and take a position on the compounded procedures involving microchip implant, being done on orphaned kittens and puppies and added to TNVR procedures. Suggestions#6
7. If your pet has a microchip, learn the symptoms of inflammatory disease.  If your pet has symptoms, provide nutritional support.  Consider inflammatory marker testing.  Talk to you veterinarian.  Know the symptoms of other toxins that may be related to your pets microchip.  Suggestions#7
8. If your pet has a microchip, do an electromagnetic force (EMF) survey of the pets environment and provide protections.  Do not use pet products with magnets.  Suggestions#8
9. If your pet has a microchip, know the transponder number and keep the registry updated.   Get what information you can on the specifications of the microchip implanted in your pet.  Suggestions#9
10. If you have to have a microchip removed, first find out about the microchip and any anti-migration characteristics that may make removal difficult and have a veterinarian do the removal properly.  Suggestions#10
11. Promote other forms of identification.  Why are we using microchips instead of faces?  Suggestions#11
12. If your community is under Mandate, familiarize yourself with the law.  If you are forced to microchip your pet, get their inflammatory markers tested before and after.  Fight for fair medical exceptions.  Gather information on the effects on the pet population and shelter dispositions and raise questions.  Make sure your municipal, county and state representatives know how you feel about such mandates.  Suggestions#12
    

Here are Suggestions on How To

Pet Health Alert – Plastic Microchips

Tell them about the fraud of grants for microchips that tie them to spay/neuter programs to claim the credit for population reduction.  Tell them about the Betrayal of Dogs Trust and about the code of silence over the Death in the Kennel.  (See also, Pet Microchip Information on Lost Pets and Background)

Tell people!

The stories are out there.  Read Pasha’s story.  Four veterinarians took his money and until he saw the x-rays himself, he never knew until too late that the tumor was growing off the microchip that had been implanted 13 years earlier.

Microchips made with metals high in iron or other ferrous components can also be a problem, as they are more magnetic (have higher magnetic potential).  Talk about a migration problem,  people should be warned about the dangers of magnets for chipped pets.

They actually make magnetic pet collars for pain relief.  We have used one on our elderly cat with arthritis as most common pain relievers are toxic to cats.  The field strength is much lower,  but over time,  it might migrate a chip.  There are magnetic pet beds, also.  VCA actually provides magnet therapy for pets.

More very well researched information from a grieving guardian about Léon.

#2  Report Adverse Reactions – Yes, we know everybody has a lot of bad words they use for what FDA stands for, but they are the only game in town for reporting pet microchip adverse events.  The Veterinary FDA has a voluntary reporting system.  Just like they have a voluntary pre-market approval for pet microchip manufacturers.  If you do not report adverse events, then manufacturers claim their products are safe, by default.

The manufacturer is required to maintain adverse event reports on their products. They should be reporting them to the Veterinary FDA.  We suspect the compliance with these requirements is poor.   Your veterinarian is not required to make an adverse event report to either the manufacturer or the Veterinary FDA.

YOU DO NOT NEED A VETERINARIAN TO REPORT ADVERSE EVENTS.  Here is the website  and here is the form FDA-1932a_508(7.16)

If you look at the first summary report of the UK Mandatory Adverse Event Reporting you will see charts on how long after the microchip was implanted the event took place.  The time scale is not linear, but shows they can occur years after implant.  Pasha’s tumor grew on the microchip 13 years after implant.

#3  Shelters and rescues are pressured to mandate microchips to get grants.  You can do the same with your donations.  Why does the ASPCA promote the misconception that microchip implants (instead of spay/neuter) reduces euthanasia? (see information in Mandates).  Ask them to show you their data.

#4  With cat and dog cancer so heartbreaking, how can it be that willful ignorance is maintained over the effects of microchips? Has anyone questioned why they are losing the pet cancer battle?  Pet cancer organizations do not even include pet microchip information in their data to consider it in their studies.  How can that be?  Maybe there is too much money being made off this industry.

#5  You can tell the AVMA has sold out pets, because they have not updated their adverse events in their risk assessments, since 2009.   Ask them why they do not include the UK data for 2014 to date in their risk analysis on microchips for pets.  Those rates are 10X higher!

#6 Veterinary organizations have approved individual procedures for the individual pediatric veterinary procedures for vaccination, spay/neuter and microchip implant.  But they are all advised with caution.  We suspect the implant at the time of spay/neuter comes from the microchip industry.   All tragically put together by people who have been lead to believe they are saving pets lives doing this to orphaned shelter animals.  The outcomes of these procedures should be tracked and evaluated.  It is not just the mortality rate of the procedures that is an issue.  How does it effect the immune system of the pets in the community and the level of infectious disease in the population?

The AVMA has already changed their support on the four month pediatric spay and revised it to five months.

#7 Implants cause chronic inflammation.  They have developed many inflammatory markers for dogs to research the cause of their cancer.  Cats have only two.  Most laboratories do not test for cat inflammatory markers.  VDI Lab does a feline test.  It seem that only the drug companies do Serum Amyloid A (SAA) test for cats that they use for drug testing.  Quite sad.  Maybe more requests for the test will get some laboratories offering the test to the public.

Inflammatory disease is legitimate grounds for medical exemption from rabies vaccination in states that have such exemptions.  If the microchip mandate does not have such, question why.

If your pet has symptoms of inflammatory illness that you cannot otherwise remedy, get their markers tested and consider having a veterinarian remove the chip.

The information is sketchy about the inflammatory response to the microchip implant, but most say the acute phase is three days and the recovery period a month.  People who enter their dogs into competitions sometimes use inflammatory marker testing to check them to make sure they are up for top performance.  They say that when a dog is implanted with a microchip, the inflammatory markers never return to their original baseline.  The manufacturers must know that, but do not have to disclose that information.  They qualify the products on the test coming back into the norm.  So the pet carries some burden that detracts from their health.  These are grounds for pet owners to object.

If you have a pet implanted with a microchip coated with Parylene C, learn the symptoms of Benzene related illness and monitor your pet for such problems.

There are also toxic chemicals associated with polyester that may be the encapsulent for the Datamars plastic microchip.

Less likely, but still possible for a glass chip of questionable origin, is the issue of lead poisoning.  If a pet has symptoms and health problems, lead should be considered for testing.

#8  Pets love EMF because it is warm.  But if they have a microchip it is a big NoNo.   Wireless devices, can interact with the chip.

Do not use magnetic products (pet beds and collars for pain relief) for pets with microchips.

#9 Pet microchip registries are a nightmare.  The first thing you will need is your transponder number.  If you do not know it, you will need to get it read at a veterinary or shelter.  If it is an older or non standard chip, you will need the scan done with a universal scanner.  Once you have the number, try a lookup in the AAHA Universal Pet Microchip Lookup.  If it is registered, they should tell you where so you can go change it.  Otherwise, you may be able to tell from the first three digits or the format of the chip, who manufactured/distributed it.  They may have a free registry or you may need to pay for one.  Always check to see they are feeding it into the universal lookup.  Microchip Transponder Numbers.  There are also lists you can find through internet searches.

These things are like mortgages.  You sign up with a company you think is legit and then they package you up and sell you to a predatory organization that starts demanding more fees to keep you listed and to update your listing.  It is a different kind of predator that has your pet by the throat.  You pay.

If you object to registration, identify a registry that can update the system fast and keep the transponder number handy to register if the pet gets lost.

#10 Microchip manufactures have made their products more invasive and toxic to prevent migration. That makes removal difficult.  Stolen animals are maimed by thieves cutting them out.  Do not do this without a veterinarian.

Humans having implants are refusing to have the ones with plastic coatings because they leave scars when removed.  Too bad pets do not have the same options.

You or your veterinarian may be threatened, by the special interests promoting pet microchips, with frivolous lawsuits for doing unnecessary surgeries if you want to remove the microchip.  You may need to take measures to protect yourself and your veterinarian.  One could counter that the implant was an unnecessary procedure, unless there is a mandate.  Mandates are used to protect those who implant harmful pet microchips.

You can make a record of symptoms, independent of your veterinarian,  through the FDA Adverse Event Reporting system.  You can get inflammatory marker testing done.   These things may also help support a medical exception if you are under mandate.  You can get a veterinarian outside the jurisdiction of the microchip mandate.  You may have to consider rehoming your pet outside the microchip mandate.  Protect your pet.

#11  Pet guardians should all have good facial and general pictures of their pets.  The facial photo should be high resolution, square in the picture and taken with the camera straight on.   Finding Rover is a great website but under-supported.  Let the sponsors know the site needs a phone contact 24/7 and some more customer service.

Make sure you have those pictures and know the transponder number if your pet has a microchip BEFORE you lose your pet.

#12 Mandates without medical exception, particularly those  that include compounded pediatric procedures, are likely to increase the kennel deaths in the shelters.  If you can get the shelter transparency data to show that, you will have a basis to request change.  Also look at the returns to owner and stray intake.  If these have not improved, how is the mandate justified?  The truth is that microchips cause more problems then they solve.  What is the cost and the benefit?

Urge your shelter to do their own review.  Suggest a review of the disposition of pets that have been implanted since in custody verses those who have not.  A twelve gauge hole in the back and an implant may very well effect an animals chances of surviving in the shelter.  Animals need care and consideration following the procedure for over three days and for weeks afterwards.   No one should be implanting them if they cannot provide the needed care.

In a shelter where microchips are used to track animals through the shelter, the scanner itself can transmit things besides radio waves.   The spread of infectious disease can adversely effect even animals who are not recently implanted.  So for shelters, look for a general increase in shelter deaths as well as one specific to animals implanted and compounded pediatric procedures.  If compounded pediatric procedures are being done, watch for elevation in the infectious disease level of the general population (shelter intake).  Implants can cause behavioral problems, too.  How would you like to have to walk on all 4’s with an implanted electronic device with an antenna in your back between your shoulder blades?

The Dog Trust has experienced increased shelter death rates to the highest on record for 2019.  Tell people about the The Betrayal of Dogs Trust.

So sad that these may be the most adverse effects from microchip implants, not counted in any adverse event report, but just another death in the shelter.

We could do better.

 

I lost my pet.  She never roamed.  She never got lost.  She just wanted to be with me.  I loved her and tried to keep her safe.  But she still got old, took a fall and suffered grave injury.  Then I lost her to cancer after prolonged illness, at 15 years of age.

Many of us lose our pet.  It happens all the time.  That is why it is so important to enjoy every day with them and love them in health and happiness.  Do not let the fear of loss influence you to do things that may cost you your health and happiness.

Do we hang on to those we love in destructive manners that cost us our health and happiness?  Get the facts.  Judge wisely, without fear.