Email hoax

[draggonlaady]

Caught this floating about in the web-tubes. Don't bother forgiving the horrid grammar, spelling and capitalization, I didn't do it.

Recently someone had to have their 5-year old German Shepherd dog put down due To liver failure. The dog was completely healthy until a few weeks ago, so they Had a necropsy done to see what the cause was. The liver levels were unbelievable, as if the dog had ingested poison of some kind.

The dog was kept inside, and when he's outside, someone's with him, so the idea of him getting into something unknown was hard to believe.
My neighbor started going through all the items in the house. When he got to The Swiffer Wetjet, he noticed, in very tiny print, a warning which stated "may be harmful to small children and animals.."
He called the company to Ask what the contents of the cleaning agent are and was Astounded to find out that antifreeze is one of the ingredients (actually, he Was told it's a compound which is one molecule away from antifreeze.)
Therefore , just by the dog walking on the floor cleaned with the solution, then Licking its own paws, it ingested enough of the solution to destroy its liver.

Soon after his dog's death,his housekeeper's two cats also died of Liver failure. They both used the Swiffer Wetjet for quick cleanups on their Floors. Necropsies weren't done on the cats, so they couldn't file a Lawsuit, but he asked that we spread the word to as many people as possible so They don't lose their animals..
This is equally harmful to babies and small children that play on the floor a lot and put their fingers in their mouths a lot.
PLEASE, EVEN IF YOU DO NOT HAVE BABIES, SMALL CHILDREN OR OWN A PET; PLEASE FORWARD THIS ON! YOU MAY NOT HAVE ANY CHILDREN OR PETS BUT SOME OF YOU HAVE FRIENDS OR FAMILY WITH PETS AND ALSO FAMILIES WITH GRANDCHILDREN AND GREAT GRANDCHILDREN.

My response:

It's extremely unlikely to be true.
Off the top of my head and responding only to what's here first:
1: True stories told by people who are really trying to get true things out there as a true warning include names and relations, not "someone"
2: Antifreeze doesn't cause liver failure, it causes kidney failure
3: Small amounts of antifreeze in a large dog rarely even make them ill, let alone kill them. The only time I've heard of "licking it off their feet" being enough of a dose to cause concern is in cats that walk through puddles of it--much smaller body weight to dose, and cats are more prone to kidney problems anyway.

Now, some quick looking things up. First, the Swiffer Info page:
http://www.swiffer.com/swiffer/en_US/wetjet.do
http://www.swiffer.com/swiffer/en_US/products/manual/swifferownman_booklet.pdf
Couldn't find a list of ingredients, but I cannot imagine a usefulness of ethylene glycol in a cleaner. It has several fairly standard warnings: "keep out of reach of children and pets", "avoid contact with eyes" that are not specific and are found on pretty much any cleaning product.

Snopes:
http://www.snopes.com/critters/crusader/swiffer.asp
Snopes actually got the MSDS and turns out the primary ingredient in the cleaner is water. There is propylene glycol in it, which is totally different than ethylene glycol. We use proylene glycol as a dilutent for concentrated oil-based medications because it is inert
and safe. It's how I manage to use horse-strength medications on canaries.

Snopes also quotes a couple passages from Proctor and Gamble's FAQ page, directly addressing the concern of animals drinking the cleaner; they say that even drinking large amounts would be expected to cause only mild and short acting stomach upset.

At the very end of the snopes article is this statement:
"Given this message's similarity to a different, unfounded, warning email about another Proctor & Gamble product, Febreze, we'd have to consider the possibility that someone with a grudge against Proctor & Gamble is maliciously trying to damage the company by deliberately spreading false information about their products."

So there you have it. Swiffer all you want.