Chip implants linked to cancer in Dogs

A friend of mine's pooches were both diagnosed with cancer recently. The tumors were in the areas where they had chip implants. Both had their legs amputated and one passed last weekend. This alarmed me as one of my dogs has a microchip from Banfield The Pet Hospital. I did some poking around and came across this article in the AP today about chip implants causing cancer in lab mice.

"Published in veterinary and toxicology journals between 1996 and 2006, the studies found that lab mice and rats injected with microchips sometimes developed subcutaneous "sarcomas" — malignant tumors, most of them encasing the implants.

_ A 1998 study in Ridgefield, Conn., of 177 mice reported cancer incidence to be slightly higher than 10 percent — a result the researchers described as "surprising."

_ A 2006 study in France detected tumors in 4.1 percent of 1,260 microchipped mice. This was one of six studies in which the scientists did not set out to find microchip-induced cancer but noticed the growths incidentally. They were testing compounds on behalf of chemical and pharmaceutical companies; but they ruled out the compounds as the tumors' cause. Because researchers only noted the most obvious tumors, the French study said, "These incidences may therefore slightly underestimate the true occurrence" of cancer.

_ In 1997, a study in Germany found cancers in 1 percent of 4,279 chipped mice. The tumors "are clearly due to the implanted microchips," the authors wrote.

Caveats accompanied the findings. "Blind leaps from the detection of tumors to the prediction of human health risk should be avoided," one study cautioned. Also, because none of the studies had a control group of animals that did not get chips, the normal rate of tumors cannot be determined and compared to the rate with chips implanted."

As a concerned pet owner I called Banfield requesting to have the chip removed. The receptionist informed me that they would not remove the chip, as there have been no studies that prove the implants cause cancer in dogs. I was outraged that this research is out there and Banfield is refusing to remove these devices.