Bromethalin - Accidentally killing pets since 1985

• bromine- and fluorine-containing diphenylamine-derived neurotoxic rodenticide
• developed in 1985 in response to the rise of strains of rodents who were resistant to the effects of anticoagulant rodenticides (e.g. warfarin)
• causes rodents to give up the ghost by uncoupling oxidative phosphorylation in the mitochondria of neurons, which depletes their cellular ATP stores and ultimately leads to axon damage and the disruption of normal neural communications producing paralysis, convulsions, and ultimately death
• uncoupling agents, being lipid-lovin' weakling acids, are able to bind up protons and carry them across the inner mitochondrial membrane independent of ATP synthase, thus disrupting the generation of ATP
  
• has been known to poison cats or dogs that eat rodents that have been killed by it (as well as those that simply eliminate the middleman by eating the rat bait itself)
• no specific antidote, and while osmotic diuretics and corticosteroids may do something beneficial, the best way to deal with a poisoning is to eliminate it from the gastrointestinal tract (induce vomiting/give activated charcoal)
  

Pasquale-Styles MA et al. Fatal bromethalin poisoning. J Forensic Sci. 2006 Sep;51(5):1154-7.
http://www.addl.purdue.edu/newsletters/1997/spring/bromoethalin.shtml
http://web.indstate.edu/thcme/mwking/oxidative-phosphorylation.html#inhibitors