Lead contamination in meat.

[LongWayAround]

If you trim liberally around the wounds and spit out anything that seems solid, I think you're pretty well in the clear. It's not like a few grains of lead just auto dispersed through the entire animal.

I work with a guy who says things like "I don't want to feed lead to my family." That person hasn't shot a deer in about eight years. He's not feeding anything to his family.

 

[z987k]

If you trim liberally around the wounds and spit out anything that seems solid, I think you're pretty well in the clear. It's not like a few grains of lead just auto dispersed through the entire animal.

I work with a guy who says things like "I don't want to feed lead to my family." That person hasn't shot a deer in about eight years. He's not feeding anything to his family.

X rays show that fragments of lead generally end up feet from the wound. Most of the lead ingested is so small you'd only be able to see it on an xray.

No one is claiming anyone is getting chunks of visible lead in their food.

 

[PredatorSlayer]

I find that just about all the people that say it isn't an issue have absolutely no idea how lead toxicity works and what it's effects are.
It's really obvious they don't when they say something along the lines of people have been eating lead shot meat forever, or me and my family are fine.
You're creating a defense to an argument literally no one is making.

Animals shot with lead are killing no one. Making no one acutely sick. And there's no way you can possibly know if you or your family is fine unless you're getting blood tests done for lead. And even then, because you can't really have a baseline for what the intelligence of you or your child would have been or if you were genetically predisposed to a condition, it's really hard to say how much it harmed you.

Largely the issue is it makes you dumber and leads to neurological conditions over time(and other things). Long term low level lead exposure is terrible for any human. And your kids will never reach the potential they had. Kids are particularly vulnerable because first they absorb more than adults and second their brain is still developing. There is a direct relationship between levels of lead in the blood of children and IQ.

It's obviously not the end of the world to eat or feed your child game shot with lead. But it's a pretty bad idea to make any habit of it.

IDK man. Both of my kids have been eating lead shot game their entire lives. Both were 4.0 students and got mid 30’s on the ACT. Daughter is going to be an attorney and son wants to be a surgeon. Maybe people with dumb kids should stop trying to blame it on lead bullets and look in the mirror instead.

 

[z987k]

IDK man. Both of my kids have been eating lead shot game their entire lives. Both were 4.0 students and got mid 30’s on the ACT. Daughter is going to be an attorney and son wants to be a surgeon. Maybe people with dumb kids should stop trying to blame it on lead bullets and look in the mirror instead.

So you didn't understand anything I wrote then?

 

[KyleR1985]

X rays show that fragments of lead generally end up feet from the wound. Most of the lead ingested is so small you'd only be able to see it on an xray.

No one is claiming anyone is getting chunks of visible lead in their food.

Do we have links to the x ray images?

They seem to have been pretty careful in setting up for them. They make it a point to highlight only lead not already in the deer, and then to confirm that the lead they see is in fact from the bullets.

I’m just trying to figure out how lead ends up on one end of a deer, when it started on the other, and it doesn’t leave a blodshot trail. For it to move theough tissue it has to have velocity. And enough velocity to push it through is going to tear tissue and cause bleeding. This would be hard not to notice if you’re paying attention.

This strikes me as “lowest common denominator” concerns. If you’re not super smart, not paying attention, don’t focus and try hard when butchering meat, or you send it to a butcher you know won’t care, then it can become a concern. Like mentioned, we can’t currently run the counterfactual, so the conservative play is to avoid feeding this meat to high risk people(kids).

the cost of a blood test for lead levels seems to be inexpensive. Seems easy enough to self police here: shoot deer where your bullets hit as little edible meat as possible. Cut away bloodshot meat. Pay attention for fragment wound channels into any edible meat. Give you and your family a blood test for lead levels annually or semi annually. There’s a known threshold for causing big problems. And a lower threshold for maybe causing problems. Do what you think is best if you see lead levels rising to a level that causes you concern.

Or shoot non lead bullets or shop at the grocery store. It’s 2024. You have lots of options of how to screw yourself and your kids up. And even more options to monitor your progress.

 

[Wyo_hntr]

I find that just about all the people that say it isn't an issue have absolutely no idea how lead toxicity works and what it's effects are.
It's really obvious they don't when they say something along the lines of people have been eating lead shot meat forever, or me and my family are fine.

So you didn't understand anything I wrote then?

Nope, we're all too stupid from the lead exposure.


So for all the super cautious copper bullet people, what type of ppe are you wearing when you shoot your firearms? Since there are toxins in the primers, certainly you don't want to be exposed to those lead particles.