Preventing tick bites and the prospect for disease can seem nearly impossible, but we are trying to make it simple enough so that it becomes part of life for people living or visiting where ever ticks occur. Effective strategies are available in each area : Protect Yourself, Protect Your Yard, Protect Your Pets.

Perimeter Spray Protect Yourself || Protect Your Yard || Protect Your Pets || Permethrin Facts || Pet Health Affiliates || Perimeter Spray

How safe is Permethrin and Permethrin-treated Clothing?

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Quick Facts :

  • Permethrin is over 2,250 times more toxic to ticks than humans; so just a little bit provides great protection safely.
  • The EPA states "...There is reasonable certainty that Permethrin-treated clothing poses no harm to infants or children".
  • Put directly on the skin, typically less than 1% of active ingredient is absorbed into the body; DEET can be absorbed at over 20 times that rate.
  • Exposure risk of Permethrin-treated clothing to toddlers is 27 times below the EPA's Level of Concern (LOC).
  • A 140-pound person would have no adverse health effects if exposed to 32 gms of permethrin/day.There is less than 1 gram of permethrin in an entire bottle of clothing treatment.
  • A 5% cream (10 times the dose) is recommended to treat children and infants with mites called scabies.
Make A Gift Today

Are you concerned about the serious health threat caused by ticks?

Would you like to make appropriate tick-borne diseases prevention programming more widely available? If you answered yes to these questions, please consider supporting the Tick Encounter Resource Center at the University of Rhode Island. Proceeds help support tick-bite prevention programs.