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
- 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
- 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
- Refuse to contribute to pet charities who promote microchips without informing pet owners of the risks. Tell them why. Suggestions#3
- Challenge pet cancer organizations to study the rate of cancer in pets with and without microchips. Suggestions#4
- 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
- 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
- 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
- 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
- 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
- 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
- Promote other forms of identification. Why are we using microchips instead of faces? Suggestions#11
- 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
#1 Most people are not aware of the dangers, particularly from the field testing of risky products in the unregulated microchip market. Send them a link to this website and ask for comments. Or send a Pet Health Alert about the Plastic Microchip being promoted. Suggested alert following:
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.