Lead ingestion health risks

[eric1115]

There are countless lead vs mono preference threads. That is not what I'm looking for here.

I've spent some time looking at lead studies. It's really easy to find the radiograph pictures of lead fragments in a chest cavity, and the studies where deer were dropped off at processors with the instructions to grind it up and then radiograph that.

What's harder (at least for me) is answering the "so what?" question. All the CDC type lead info pages lean really heavy on the danger of inhaling or ingesting lead dust and lead compounds and lead vapor, but I haven't found a lot of solid info on the link between ingestion of solid lead and elevated BLL.

There is a lot of poorly controlled stuff that I've seen, and a lot of poorly contextualized stuff I've seen. For example, the following paper asserts that ingesting lead has concerning potential for adverse health effects, but looking through the cited studies I see something like a 0.3 µg/dL increase for regular eaters of wild game harvested with lead bullets. When the reference level is 5.0 for adults and 3.5 for children (meaning that level puts you in the worst 2.5% of the population), this seems like very tenuous link to health risks.

https://science.peregrinefund.org/legacy-sites/conference-lead/PDF/0103%20Kosnett.pdf

Is anyone aware of a study that clearly demonstrates connection or lack thereof between ingesting lead fragments and elevated BLL?

Are there studies of radiograph analysis of carefully butchered animals?

Please please, can we avoid the discussion of politics, lead bans, "why risk it", or "my grandpa lived to age 92" type stuff?

I'd love to keep this focused on trying to find solid research, clearly articulate the flaws in bad research (either direction), and work towards better understanding the issue. I know what I think is the case, but I'm way more interested in finding out whether I'm right or wrong than I am in winning an argument against someone who disagrees. If you want to argue, there are a dozen lead vs mono threads for that. This is very specifically a "how much risk does it pose" and "how do we know that" question.

 

[PistolPete]

I'm a state biologist fighting against the rising tide of lead rifle ammo bans. Here's the best study I know of: https://web.archive.org/web/2015022...//e4faa6_49034f4544988fbcdc066574c430f3b4.pdf

I'm always interested in collecting more, if anyone has them.

 

[ElPollo]

This is a hot topic that a lot of people have strong feelings about. I hope this thread can keep the strong feelings part to a minimum.

Jim Heffelfinger’s paper on this is about as good of a resources as I’ve seen. It’s a little dated (2020), but I haven’t seen a lot more come out on the topic.

Health Risks of Lead in Venison: Gray Toxin or Red Herring? | Deer & Deer Hunting

Find out if bird biologists' concerns about the effects of lead in venison on human health are legitimate or just an effort to save birds.

www.deeranddeerhunting.com

 

[ElPollo]

I'm a state biologist fighting against the rising tide of lead rifle ammo bans. Here's the best study I know of: https://web.archive.org/web/2015022...//e4faa6_49034f4544988fbcdc066574c430f3b4.pdf

I'm always interested in collecting more, if anyone has them.

Pete, that link is to a press release. Do you have the actual citation for the paper?

Actually I see now that it was a conference presentation. I’ll do search to see if they ever actually published this. It’s always been interesting to me. You see lots of publications documenting high lead levels in birds with gizzards or in raptors, but not in mammals. I’ve always thought this was due to the differences in digestive systems due to grinding actions of the gizzard and extremely low ph in raptors to dissolve bone. The information you see on humans is always confounded with other lead sources that are more bioavailable, like paint.

 

[PistolPete]

Pete, that link is to a press release. Do you have the actual citation for the paper?

I have it in PDF; I can send it. Let me look for it online...

 

[ElPollo]

I have it in PDF; I can send it. Let me look for it online...

Appreciate that.

 

[PistolPete]

Found the PDF online here.

Key excerpt:

EU limit for livestock is 0.1 mg/kg to be allowed to sell to the public. An annual consumption of 30 kg will give a steady state daily exposure of 8.3 µg. In turn this give by use of EPA intake slope factor model, an increase on B-Pb of 0.33 µg/dL. Compared with annual consumption of 30 kg game meat with a claimed content of 3-5 mg lead metal per kg and that 1-2 % of it is converted to a bioaccessible form the result will be a daily steady state exposure of 4.9 µg. This corresponding to B-Pb 0.2 µg/dL.

 

[ElPollo]

I just did a cursory look through it and intend to read it fully later, but it seems well done. They note that lead fragments are mostly within about a 4” diameter of the wound channel and that trimming and discarding these areas with a margin results in a negligible risk of accidental intake.

 

[General RE LEE]

I sprinkle lead and COVID on my cheerios in the morning.

 

[Pharmseller]

I sprinkle lead and COVID on my cheerios in the morning.

Sissy.

I eat it straight.




P

 

[Southern Lights]

There are two areas of lead exposure I'm concerned with:

1) Lead in meat.
2) Lead in primers.

From my non-chemist research, the lead in primers as lead styphnate is of particular concern as it is easily absorbed if ingested. I am careful how I handle spent cartridges by keeping them in a separate ziploc bag and wash up well after handling cases. Reloading makes this a particular risk as well.

Lead in meat is more of a question mark. Although the metallic form may not be as available, it can be made so if exposed to an acid like vinegar from my understanding. So deer meat with lead in it could become a problem if you marinade it, etc.

So out of an abundance of caution, I always leave meat that I think was contaminated/bloodshot with lead. This past year I also began transitioning to lead-free because I'm tired of worrying about it.

Overall, eating lead is a bad idea. I know the arguments why it might not be, but if I were to put two plates of meat in front of someone with these labels:

1) Contains Lead
2) Contains No Lead

I am willing to bet few will be reaching for the first one to give to their family.

This article describes how grape juice boiled in lead pots likely caused lead poisoning of Romans:

Grape syrup - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

"In ancient Rome, grape syrup was often boiled in lead pots, which sweetened the syrup through the leaching of the sweet-tasting chemical compound lead acetate into the syrup. Incidentally, this is thought to have caused lead poisoning for Romans consuming the syrup."

 

[Southern Lights]

I'm a state biologist fighting against the rising tide of lead rifle ammo bans. Here's the best study I know of: https://web.archive.org/web/2015022...//e4faa6_49034f4544988fbcdc066574c430f3b4.pdf

I'm always interested in collecting more, if anyone has them.

I read this study some time back and I question what would happen if the lead fragments were in a food preparation that had citric/acetic acid like fruit juice or vinegar. Would it cause the lead to leech out into an an available form? I believe it's quite possible, but I'm not a chemist.

 

[ElPollo]

There are two areas of lead exposure I'm concerned with:

1) Lead in meat.
2) Lead in primers.

From my non-chemist research, the lead in primers as lead styphnate is of particular concern as it is easily absorbed if ingested. I am careful how I handle spent cartridges by keeping them in a separate ziploc bag and wash up well after handling cases. Reloading makes this a particular risk as well.

Lead in meat is more of a question mark. Although the metallic form may not be as available, it can be made so if exposed to an acid like vinegar from my understanding. So deer meat with lead in it could become a problem if you marinade it, etc.

So out of an abundance of caution, I always leave meat that I think was contaminated/bloodshot with lead. This past year I also began transitioning to lead-free because I'm tired of worrying about it.

Overall, eating lead is a bad idea. I know the arguments why it might not be, but if I were to put two plates of meat in front of someone with these labels:

1) Contains Lead
2) Contains No Lead

I am willing to bet few will be reaching for the first one to give to their family.

This article describes how grape juice boiled in lead pots likely caused lead poisoning of Romans:

Grape syrup - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

"In ancient Rome, grape syrup was often boiled in lead pots, which sweetened the syrup through the leaching of the sweet-tasting chemical compound lead acetate into the syrup. Incidentally, this is thought to have caused lead poisoning for Romans consuming the syrup."

I agree that lead in primers is more of a concern for me. I have started taking D-wipes and gloves with for clean-up during range time. I also am not particularly a fan of shooting suppressed ARs because of the gas in the face.

On the meat side, I was a regular non-lead/mono person for years when my daughter was young. But I was never happy with the performance on game. I’ve since gone back to lead core bullets, but I do my best to stay off the shoulders and I trim hard around bloodshot areas.

 

[RockAndSage]

On any given gun range, roughly 25% of the lead particulate is from the primer compound, the other 75% is from atomized bullet lead. Rifles and pistols have different proportions of atomized copper and lead they put out, enough for forensic investigators to tell one from the other based on the proportions they can find on scene. Pistol cartridges more lead (lower melting point), rifle cartridges more copper.

Suppressors can be particularly bad in enclosed spaces for people spending large amounts of time in shoot houses. It doesn't seem to be anywhere nearly bad on open-air ranges. US DoD has been going through some tough situations with their shoot house instructors because of it though. Guys having to go on chelation regimes to get the copper, lead, tin, zinc, etc out of their systems. But for guys shooting a few thousand rounds per year suppressed, in the open air? Seems to be much less of an issue.

Regarding bullet lead on public lands, some research was done awhile back (I don't have it) on US Civil War battlefields, which probably saw the greatest volumes of pure, unjacketed lead ever slung across a landscape. Short version, bullet lead encapsulates itself in an oxide coating and doesn't seem to flow out into the broader ecosystem.

Not sure if any of this info will help anyone here directly, but it might provide some good leads to track down further.

 

[The Guide]

I've spent some time looking at lead studies. It's really easy to find the radiograph pictures of lead fragments in a chest cavity, and the studies where deer were dropped off at processors with the instructions to grind it up and then radiograph that.

I would like to see a comparison of what the lead content of a carcass looks like before and after meat removal. Is the lead contain within the body cavity and wound path or does it truly get distributed to all of the edible meat.

Jay

 

[Formidilosus]

does it truly get distributed to all of the edible meat.

Jay

By what mechanism would that happen?

 

[The Guide]

By what mechanism would that happen?

I have no idea. I feel like all lead contamination should be limited to the bullet path and the internal organs and blood in the body cavity. I can see the internal loins getting possible contamination by blood with lead fragmentation in it but only surface contamination if any at all. When it is said that you "could" have contamination in the hind quarters from an animal shot ribs only through the lungs, I feel that is pretty far fetched. If an animal is shot in the guts, then in the hind quarters and finally a high shoulder through the spine shot, then yes that animal might have some lead contamination but not outside of the wound paths.

Am I concerned about lead contamination? Not from animals I (or my people) shoot and process.

Jay

 

[ElPollo]

I have no idea. I feel like all lead contamination should be limited to the bullet path and the internal organs and blood in the body cavity. I can see the internal loins getting possible contamination by blood with lead fragmentation in it but only surface contamination if any at all. When it is said that you "could" have contamination in the hind quarters from an animal shot ribs only through the lungs, I feel that is pretty far fetched. If an animal is shot in the guts, then in the hind quarters and finally a high shoulder through the spine shot, then yes that animal might have some lead contamination but not outside of the wound paths.

Am I concerned about lead contamination? Not from animals I (or my people) shoot and process.

Jay

The paper linked above confirms that the lead is largely distributed within about 4” of the wound channel. Trim and toss that bloodshot stuff and your probability for exposure from eating game meat is minuscule.

 

[Dave C.]

Anybody who believes the lead propaganda should ask for another glass of Kool-aid. It's been several yrs since I did a deep dive into any "research" regarding the claims and what I essentially came up with was not a shred of scientific proof that lead ingestion from harvested game does ANYTHING. In fact, there was never any proof connecting lead shot used for bird hunting to lead poisoning in raptors. It was all manufactured. The studies were poorly performed and simply ignored other more likely sources.

 

[eric1115]

Anybody who believes the lead propaganda should ask for another glass of Kool-aid. It's been several yrs since I did a deep dive into any "research" regarding the claims and what I essentially came up with was not a shred of scientific proof that lead ingestion from harvested game does ANYTHING. In fact, there was never any proof connecting lead shot used for bird hunting to lead poisoning in raptors. It was all manufactured. The studies were poorly performed and simply ignored other more likely sources.

I am largely in agreement with you. My purpose in starting this thread is to find the best sources of info that support or refute the common narrative that you find on so many fish and game websites, health organizations, etc.

Do you recall what sources you found on your deep dive? I have never found the "I did my research and all those studies are garbage" argument to be an effective one (even if true), unless there's a very clear and specific description of the flaws in the studies and/or well done studies that offer different conclusions.