As part of its increased scrutiny of spot-on flea and tick products, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency met with product manufacturers on May 5, an agency spokesman said, though no action has been taken yet. The agency also confirmed that an original list of products under scrutiny was updated to make the list include all registered products.

“We received a request from the industry to remove the original list of products because it was incomplete and therefore misleading,” said EPA Press Officer Dale Kemery. “Once we were able to develop a complete list of products we returned the list to the Web site.”

Last month the EPA posted an advisory on its site announcing the increased scrutiny of these products. The site originally had a list of seven products on its site that it said were responsible for about 80 percent of the 44,000 adverse effect reports that were recorded last year. The updated list now includes dozens of products.

Kemery said the EPA is looking at all spot-on products, not just the seven on the original list.

Following its meeting with the manufacturers, the agency is now developing a work plan in order to move forward, Kemery said.

“We are expecting to obtain additional data from the manufacturers that will be helpful in our continued analysis of these products,” he said. “After that analysis is complete, we will determine what regulatory steps may be necessary.”