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London Dog Forum > London Dog Forum News > Open Dog Forum > Compulsory Microchipping

Compulsory Microchipping

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Re Microchipping and Dog Health
We at Guide Dogs now micro chip about one thousand pups a year at around six weeks. This is before they go out to the puppy walking homes. This has been carried out for ten years and we have seen no adverse effects. It should be noted that we see all our dogs on a regular basis throughout their lives including a six monthly check by a vet. So, nothing could be hushed up!

Also, I have organised a check of several hundred adults on two occasions and 0.03 chips had migrated but we did trace them.

Neil Ewart.
Guide Dogs For The Blind Association
Posted 5th February

Hi,
I think if you are going to claim to state the facts about dog micro chipping you should be willing to put the science out there and let people make their own decisions. There have been several studies done that prove a link between micro chipping and soft tissue sarcomas.

The full studies can be found on the internet.

Health Studies:

Le Calvez 2006, Studied Species – Mice, Sample 1,260, Length of Implant Exposure 2 years, Developed Cancer 4.1 per cent.
Vascellari 2006, Studied Species – Dog, Sample - N/A Vets Journal Article, Length of Implant Exposure 7 months (at age 9), dog got cancer from implant.
Vascellari 2004, dog, 18 months (at age 11), study by a vet of one dog, dog got cancer from implant.
Elcock 2001 Studied Species rats Sample 1,040 Length of Implant Exposure 2 years Developed Cancer 0.8%
Blanchard 1999 Studied Species mice Sample 177 Length of Implant Exposure 6 months Developed Cancer 10.2%.
Palmer 1998 Studied Species  mice Sample 800 Length of Implant Exposure 2 years Developed Cancer 2.0%
Tillmann 1997 Studied Species mice Sample 4,279 Length of Implant  lifespan Cancer 0.8%
Johnson 1996 Studied Species mice Sample 2,000 Length of Implant Exposure 2 years Cancer ~1.0%

Here are studies used to get FDA approval in which micro chip induced cancer was not found:

Murasugi 2003, Species dog, Sample size 9, No cancer
Ball 1991, Species rats, Sample 50, No cancer
Rao & Edmondson 1990, Sample 133, No cancer 

Note: No study thus far has been a wide ranging, large subject group lifetime study. These chips have not been tested enough, period.

Please read the attached pdf for a few other reasons why pet micro chipping should not be done. Omission whilst trying to prove a point is lying. Please be truthful when making you points.

Kind regards

Lawrance Rafferty
From K9pe.com
Posted 4th February, 2010


In response to Mr Rafferty

In our article “The Continuing Campaign For Compulsory Dog Microchipping”, it was stated that the Dogs Trust, who are renowned for their efforts to improve dog welfare, are recommending compulsory microchipping for these reasons:

a) to reduce the number of stray dogs that would need to be destroyed
b) to ensure that dog owners would be more responsible for their dogs
c) to combat the amount of dogs being stolen
d) to combat illegal breeding

The move towards compulsory microchipping is fully supported by the British Veterinary Association.

London Dog Forum aims to keep the welfare of dogs a priority, however we do not wish to mislead our readers by not fully reporting the facts, therefore we are publishing Mr Rafferty from K9pe.com’s e-mail that includes a list of the studies to which he refers. Full reports of this research can easily be obtained on the internet.

In the article on compulsory microchipping London Dog Forum quoted figures obtained from the BVA that came from a worldwide database.  In approximately 2.5 million dogs chipped between 1996 and May 2009, out of the 308 adverse reactions recorded, only two of these cases report a tumour and there is no evidence that the chip has been the causal factor.  Period of time and sample size does not appear to be the issue from this data.

Another argument against these health studies that show a development of cancer following chipping is that the majority of research was carried out on mice and rats that are generally more prone to cancer than other species.  Furthermore mice used in laboratory research on cancer are genetically engineered and lack a tumour suppressor gene in an effort to reduce the time needed for carcinogenetic studies.  It would be a mistake to make an assumption of health risk in other species from data obtained from tumour prone mice (Blanchard, Barthel et al. 1999). In both cases where cancer was observed in dogs following microchipping, the study relates to one dog. 

A possible correlation between localised tissue inflammation and the development of tumours has been acknowledged by researchers and the development of tumours in cats on the site of repeated injection has been observed (Day,2007).  It is thought that these tumours are more likely to be associated with the adjuvant, a substance used in vaccines to aid the immune response.  With the evidence that injection may cause tumours in some animals, should we refrain from having our animals vaccinated against life threatening disease that also may endanger human life such as rabies?

In conclusion and in the words of Mr Rafferty, it is up to people to make their own informed decision.  The subject has been raised and the information has been given.  Full reports are available on the internet for everyone to read and London Dog Forum cannot be considered as ‘guilty of omission’.

Our references:

Blanchard ,K T.Barthel, C. French, J E et al. (1999) Transponder-induced sarcoma in the heterozygous P53+ mouse. Toxicol Pathology. 27: 519 – 527
Day, M J (2007) Does inflammation trigger cancer in cats? Proceedings of the WSAVA Congress, Sydney: Australia

London Dog Forum
Posted 4th February, 2010

A few years ago I had severe doubts regarding the value of micro chips.  However, I have had personal experience of a number of dogs which were either stolen, or lost and would never have been traced back to their owners had they not been micro chipped.  Obviously, all dogs must wear a collar with a suitable ID tag but these can easily be lost or removed.
All owners of dogs must realise that incidents of dog theft are on the increase and, although chips do not prevent it happening, they do increase the chances of you getting your dog back dramatically.

Neil Ewart
Guide Dogs For The Blind Association
Posted 4th February

I live in Scotland and am considering moving to England in 2010 but as a dog owner I now need to take into account the Dogs Trust push for compulsory microchipping of dogs.
As a loving dog owner I will not - WILL NOT - push one of these chips into my little, friendly innocent dog. She deserves more respect than that.
I have been in contact with the MPs responsible for the Control of Dogs (Scotland) Bill who have assured me that Scotland will not go down the road of making microchipping compulsory for all dogs.
But English MPs seem to be jumping on the Dogs Trust campaign bandwagon and support making this obscenity compulsory even for innocent friendly dogs with good owners.
I am really very angry that the Dogs Trust has linked microchipping with "responsible" owners. How dare they say that I am not responsible if I choose not to push an RFID chip into my dog.
My dog is inoculated, sociable, friendly and trained to a high standard. How dare they! Children get lost and abducted....would you push a chip into your child?  Ask yourself why not.
I feel so strongly about this that I will not move south if this Government does pass a law to make this compulsory in England and Wales.
Why can't they take Scotlands lead and focus on the owners not the dogs.
It may make the job of the Dogs Trust easier to have a database but shoving a microchip into the body of  living animals is not the ethical way forward. We should be banning these things not making them compulsory.
Do you know of a petition against this because I would dearly like to become involved in fighting this unethical proposal.

C.Moore
Scotland
Posted 1st January, 2010

RE COMPULSORY MICROCHIPPING
I think micro-chipping is an essential and important part of responsible dog ownership. Here in France it is compulsory to have puppies either micro-chipped or tattooed in one ear.
I do not have personal experience of the value of having a dog chipped, but I know that it made all the difference when one of my cats was stolen. I managed to track down the person who had catnapped my beautiful cat, but he, ofcourse, denied all knowledge. A couple of hours after tackling him about it, he took my cat out into the countryside and dumped him. Fortunately a lady had seen him do it and she rescued my cat. Because the cat was micro-chipped her local vet was able to identify him and he was returned to me immediately.
 In this age of a rather irresponsible society I think it is even more important that dogs are micro-chipped if only for the purpose of identification of ownership should a dog become dangerous or allowed to roam unsupervised with the attendant problem of dog fouling.

Sally Dixon
Charente
France
Posted 19th November, 2009

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