Toram,
 
Just so you know, the Frontline neural damage reports I have read to date
(and I'll have to look at your links later) have been almost entirely
based on a misreading of case studies in Australia.  In those cases the
point was that Frontline did not stop a particularly bad tick, and the
neural damage and death in the animals happened NOT from the medicine,
but from the tick bites themselves.  Instead of checking into the tick
cases further the people squawking ASSUMED that the medication was to
blame.  It took very little time to check into the particular ticks
involved to find the actual cause.
 
Here:
 
http://www.shoal.net.au/~rwylie/tick.html
 
on Paralysis Ticks/Poison Ticks ( Ixodes holocyclus which is normally
found in only part of Australia but has been encountered in other parts
after it hitched a ride on nursery plants), with more in John Lewington's
_Ferret Husbandry, Medicine & Surgery_ where the ascending paralysis in
dogs is noted and that it presents like botulism in ferrets.
 
BTW, some other aspects of the assertions in past years were based on
partly on misquoting of a vet who I wrote to asking about it...
 
See also multiple VET posts in http://fhl.sonic-weasel.org
 
and
http://fhl.sonic-weasel.org/browse.php?msg=SG7516
 
and to get a feeling for how those people got confused and made
assumptions:
http://www.nra.gov.au/chemrev/fipronil.pdf
 
So, as usual: GRAIN OF SALT WHEN READING *ANYONE* AND VERIFY, VERIFY,
VERIFY!
 
That said, we don't use the product ourselves by putting it into the ears
because there is no real need to when it works perfectly by just being on
the nearby skin, but early on we did with absolutely no negative results
whatsoever.  So, while we don't do it as a precaution it is NOT a
precaution for anything we consider at all likely to happen -- just tad
extra caution and nothing more than that.  So, ;-) I wink at you and
others who have been made concerned and add, "Nope, the sky isn't
falling.":-)
[Posted in FML issue 4835]