I have heard of this report recently. A few thoughts from some of our vets at work....

1) anything can be 'reported as a reaction'. Meaning that if the owner puts the wrong size/species dose on it's an incident. If they put it on in the wrong place and the pet licks it it's an incident, if the animal happens to be harboring an infection just before application and the animal comes up sick later it's reported as an incident against the topical even if it was non related.

2) at our hospital we have seen more bad reactions, and heard more complaints (like 90% more) from OTC flea/tick meds than from any of the ones bought from our hospital. The remaining complaints on products we sell seem to mostly concern Promeris, very, VERY few complaints on Frontline Plus, and I belive they said only 2 complaints on Revolution in over 5 years. **FYI Revolution is registered with the FDA not the EPA and is considered a drug not a pesticide which is why it requires a prescription.**

Until they can give hard core numbers as to how many complaints per particular product, the exact reactions and numbers of them, and the source of the complaints they do not have an accurate account of reactions. This is even stated on the report in the link.

"In reviewing the list of seven products, please note the following:
...
This information does not account for the market share of these products;
This information does not reflect the severity of incidents;
This information does not reflect potential misuse of the products; and
If incidents are not reported by pet owners or registrants, this may affect the potential accuracy of this list."


From my own standpoint I had used Frontline for several years without any incidents and now have been using Revolution for 3 years with no incidents. The only reason I switched was an earmite episode (Revolution gets earmites as well as some intestinal worms) and my cats hated the kitty Heartgard (Revolution also gets heartworms). The switch made my life, and my kitty's lives easier. Although if I do encounter a tick problem I'd have no issues with switching back to Frontline Plus for that (Revolution does not get ticks).