Fipronil - Effects

Effects

Fipronil is a slow acting poison. When mixed with a bait, it allows the poisoned insect time to return to the colony or harborage. In cockroaches, the feces and carcass can contain sufficient residual pesticide to kill others in the same nesting site. In ants, the sharing of the bait among colony members assists in the spreading of the poison throughout the colony. With the cascading effect, the projected kill rate is about 95% in three days for ants and cockroaches.

Toxic baiting with fipronil has also been shown to be extremely effective in locally eliminating German wasps (commonly called yellowjackets in North America). All colonies within foraging range are completely eliminated within one week.

Wildlife impacts include the following:

  • Fipronil is highly toxic to fish and aquatic invertebrates. Its tendency to bind to sediments and its low water solubility may reduce the potential hazard to aquatic wildlife.
  • Fipronil is toxic to bees and should not be applied to vegetation when bees are foraging.
  • Fipronil has been found to be highly toxic to upland game birds, but is practically nontoxic to waterfowl and other bird species. One of the metabolites of fipronil has a higher toxicity to birds than the parent compound itself.

Fipronil is also used as the active ingredient in flea control products for pets, field pest control for corn, golf courses and commercial turf.

It acts by binding to an allosteric site of GABAA receptors and GluCl receptor (of the insect), a form of noncompetitive inhibition.

Acute oral LD50 (rat) 97 mg/kg
Acute dermal LD50 (rat) >2000 mg/kg

In animals and humans, fipronil poisoning is characterized by vomiting, agitation, and seizures, and can usually be managed through supportive care and early treatment of seizures, generally with benzodiazepine use.

In May 2003, the French Directorate-General of Food at the Ministry of Agriculture determined that a case of mass bee mortality observed in southern France was related to acute fipronil toxicity. Toxicity was linked to defective seed treatment, which generated dust. In February 2003, the Ministry decided to temporarily suspend the sale of BASF crop protection products containing fipronil in France. The seed treatment involved has since been forbidden. Fipronil was used in a broad spraying to control locusts in Madagascar in a program that began in 1997.

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