Yeah, the first time I saw someone talking about PAM on here, I also assumed it was the oil spray. I sat there nodding knowingly, like, “Ah yes, if you coat your snake in vegetable oil, that must make them too slippery for the mites to crawl on, makes perfect sense.” 
Ok @caryl and @jawramik you guys are closer to home than you think! When I first saw PAM in a thread regarding snake mite eradication I wondered the same exact thing! Only I didn’t want to admit it! So thank you both dear ladies, for confirming that I am in great company! 
You’re talking about spraying PAM directly onto a snake? You have got to be kidding.
At any rate, just in case this horse isn’t dead, that would be illegal, not an off label use.
I wish I was. People can be that stupid.
Two quick screencaps. NIX is the human lice killing permitherin product
There have been a few hognose deaths or neuro issues because they’re sensitive to the stuff, even if properly used on paper towel only.
What I mean is ‘you’ve been talking this whole time about spraying PAM directly on a snake when that wasn’t part of the discussion about off label use at all?’, or something to that effect. But maybe ‘all this time’ isn’t correct; you didn’t make the terminological shift to using permethrin “on reptiles” until post #72, so probably the best interpretation of the situation is that the goalposts moved; that not a cool way to be correct.
Maybe (nothing published I could find, so user error is the most plausible cause here; anecdotes pale in comparison to actual data about how hard it is to kill snakes with permethrin anyway), but the safety of PAM isn’t relevant to the ‘off label’ discussion. Also, the mention of species-specific sensitivities to PAM (or some other permethrin product? I don’t know at this point) is odd in light of the fact that you didn’t mention, in your implicit support of ivermectin in treating snake mites, its relative intolerance by some snake taxa – the particular sensitivity of Python regius is mentioned in two different places in Mader’s, which is the species at issue in this thread. All the irrelevant, conflationary content and incorrect basic claims (like the failure to distinguish between a drug and a pesticide spray) seems at odds with the confidence with which you’re stating these things. I don’t know how to put this any more diplomatically.
Honestly, I have no skin in the game because I haven’t personally had an issue with reptile mites in my collection, only outside of my home.
I don’t read every bit of medical news in the field but there are many anecdotes about people using PAM and loosing their reptile. I have personally seen permitherin kill cats. I do not like it. I am also VERY cautious when taking my Tylenol for that reason. The bottle is never left in the open.
I’ve only used ivermectin under the guidance of a vet on cornsnakes while working in the field. We used fipronil off label for bps when I was working in a pet shop, never as a spray directly on the enclosure or animal, only as a topical wipe down again under veterinary guidance.
I own a collie breed and am aware of the potential risks with ivermectin.
I’ve been around enough to see people misuse the popular no pest strips. And have seen people dumb enough to even make an appointment for the small tumor on their male cat’s belly, diagnosis: a nipple. The cat had five more lol.
Every medication or product like this is going to have downsides. What worries me is how easily people can misuse them when they stop realizing what harm it can actually do. Especially when it’s just a simple and easy to use form like a flea collar or spray.
You could just say you were wrong about the ‘off label’ issue. This was supposed to be a good-faith discussion of that issue, not tangential distractions to save face (especially not ones that lean hard on how dumb other people are, which you’ve irrelevantly mentioned at least twice). Correcting online misinformation is hard, but please don’t make it harder.
I’m going to ask that we keep this topic to the subject at hand without turning to belittling others. Remember the community guidelines, criticize ideas, not people.
