Lead ingestion health risks

[Formidilosus]

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.

Yes, that is said by people with an agenda- reference the picture of the x-rayed deer with lead placed all throughout its body. Gel blocks are 8”x8” and yet no lead “dust” or particles, that aren’t very large exit blocks.

 

[ElPollo]

Yes, that is said by people with an agenda- reference the picture of the x-rayed deer with lead plead all throughout its body. Gel blocks are 8”x8” and yet ho lead “dust” or particles that aren’t very large exit blocks.

I’ve seen the sources reporting that lead traveled up to 18” from the wound channel. They were not peer reviewed and neither is the paper discussed here. Peer review is supposed to catch those leaps of logic that transcend physics (like microscopic grains that travel a foot and a half through muscle), but they don’t always. As with everything in science, it’s up to the reader to critically evaluate the materials, methodology, and the conclusions. And it’s also important to remember that science is a tool that can inform policy, but policy makers rarely have the ability to do that critical evaluation. They rely on others to synthesize the findings. Those synthesizers can be well-intentioned people or not.

 

[Hunter270Win]

Being completely honest, lead bullets will likely be banned for hunting in the future. I don’t agree with it but it is inevitable for two reasons.

1.) The government loves to control aspects like this and once the ban is in place, it’s not going anywhere.

2.) For all of the responsible hunters out there, there are people who will straight up eat lead shot meat and feed it to their children. I don’t know if it’s an education thing or what, but it’s very common for people to bite down on lead here and joke about it. It’s a serious matter especially for young children.

Again I don’t personally want there to be a ban on lead bullets but it’s gonna happen. Just like how they’ve done with steel shot. It’s a matter of time really.

 

[Formidilosus]

it’s very common for people to bite down on lead here and joke about it. It’s a serious matter especially for young children.

This thread is asking for real evidence that it is a problem. Do you have anything that legitimately shows “it is a serious matter”?

 

[Hunter270Win]

This thread is asking for real evidence that it is a problem. Do you have anything that legitimately shows “it is a serious matter”?

It’s pretty common knowledge that lead consumption in children is much worse than compared to adults. But for the sake of the thread I will post some links that highlight this.

Lead poisoning

Lead is a naturally occurring toxic metal found in the Earth’s crust. Its widespread use has resulted in extensive environmental contamination, human exposure and significant public health problems in many parts of the world.

www.who.int

Lead and Children: No Amount of Lead is Safe

Under Dakota’s Law, children in New York will be screened more often for lead poisoning. Vicki Iannotti, MD, explains what parents should know and how to protect their children.

www.cuimc.columbia.edu

An Update on Childhood Lead Poisoning - PMC

Childhood lead poisoning is a multi-faceted, complex condition, which affects not only the child’s health and well-being, but also the family’s housing security, economic status, job security, and stress level. This review updates the emergency ...

pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

 

[eric1115]

Being completely honest, lead bullets will likely be banned for hunting in the future. I don’t agree with it but it is inevitable for two reasons.

1.) The government loves to control aspects like this and once the ban is in place, it’s not going anywhere.

2.) For all of the responsible hunters out there, there are people who will straight up eat lead shot meat and feed it to their children. I don’t know if it’s an education thing or what, but it’s very common for people to bite down on lead here and joke about it. It’s a serious matter especially for young children.

Again I don’t personally want there to be a ban on lead bullets but it’s gonna happen. Just like how they’ve done with steel shot. It’s a matter of time really.

Respectfully, this part of it has been talked about endlessly on this and other forums. I would very much like for this to be a discussion of how we know it's a serious matter or not. Not the politics, not the assertions, show me the evidence.

Edit to address the post you made while I was composing this. These are like most of the sources I've seen. In my original post I addressed this, but these articles do literally nothing to demonstrate that lead particles from fragmenting bullets lead to elevated blood lead levels.

They rightly describe health risks of elevated BLL, describe the most dangerous sources (lead compounds, dust, etc) but do not demonstrate that ingesting lead particles leads to meaningfully elevated BLL, or even that correctly butchered animals even result in ingestion of those fragments.

 

[woods89]

It’s pretty common knowledge that lead consumption in children is much worse than compared to adults. But for the sake of the thread I will post some links that highlight this.

Lead poisoning

Lead is a naturally occurring toxic metal found in the Earth’s crust. Its widespread use has resulted in extensive environmental contamination, human exposure and significant public health problems in many parts of the world.

www.who.int

Lead and Children: No Amount of Lead is Safe

Under Dakota’s Law, children in New York will be screened more often for lead poisoning. Vicki Iannotti, MD, explains what parents should know and how to protect their children.

www.cuimc.columbia.edu

An Update on Childhood Lead Poisoning - PMC

Childhood lead poisoning is a multi-faceted, complex condition, which affects not only the child’s health and well-being, but also the family’s housing security, economic status, job security, and stress level. This review updates the emergency ...

pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

I don't think anyone is doubting the issues with lead in paint, etc, but none of those has any sort of link to eating wild game shot with lead core bullets.
I feed my kids meat shot with lead core bullets. We do our own processing, so it gets trimmed well. We don't keep Doritos or soda around the house, though, so I guess we all have our things. I'd guess the latter two cause harm on orders of magnitude more than wild game shot with lead core bullets, but no one's interested in banning them.........

 

[Formidilosus]

It’s pretty common knowledge that lead consumption in children is much worse than compared to adults. But for the sake of the thread I will post some links that highlight this.

Lead poisoning

Lead is a naturally occurring toxic metal found in the Earth’s crust. Its widespread use has resulted in extensive environmental contamination, human exposure and significant public health problems in many parts of the world.

www.who.int

Lead and Children: No Amount of Lead is Safe

Under Dakota’s Law, children in New York will be screened more often for lead poisoning. Vicki Iannotti, MD, explains what parents should know and how to protect their children.

www.cuimc.columbia.edu

An Update on Childhood Lead Poisoning - PMC

Childhood lead poisoning is a multi-faceted, complex condition, which affects not only the child’s health and well-being, but also the family’s housing security, economic status, job security, and stress level. This review updates the emergency ...

pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Not one of those addresses solid lead ingestion from projectiles causing medically validated increased blood lead levels.

I’ll give you a hint- because there are no studies that show it does, because it doesn’t.

 

[Yoder]

Anyone ever bite down on lead split shots when they were a kid? I still do. I'm thinking that's what happened to me.

 

[Hunter270Win]

Not one of those addresses solid lead ingestion from projectiles causing medically validated increased blood lead levels.

I’ll give you a hint- because there are no studies that show it does, because it doesn’t.

You quoted the part of my post talking about how lead consumption for children is a serious matter, thus the reason why I linked those posts.

The truth is that you won’t get LESS lead consumption while eating meat shot with lead bullets. You will get more than if you used copper (assuming you’re eating the meat within a certain radius of the shot which depends on a ton of factors such as caliber, impact velocity, bullet construction etc.) it’s common sense.

My whole point in posting in this thread was purely to say that lead hunting bullets will eventually be regulated because of the factors I listed.

Another thing is that just because there are no studies on a matter, that does not mean that there isn’t legitimacy for the claim.

Also, I want to reiterate that I USE lead bullets and will continue to use them while hunting because I don’t think the slight increase in potential lead consumption is anything to worry about for me or my family. But good luck trying to convince that to lawmakers.

 

[Southern Lights]

I directly know someone that had very high levels of lead when tested likely from all the shooting/reloading he was doing as a competition shooter. Exposure was very likely from the primers, dust, handling cases, etc.

On the other topic of lead in meat. I had two recent experiences that have gotten me to evaluate the issue:

1) Hit deer with 140ELD-M in 6.5x55. Fragmented bullet caused bloodshot of localized area. Pulverized organs cause massive bleeding into the body cavity and lead particles likely contaminated more meat.

2) Another deer with .223 V-Max into chest. Lost half of backsteaks due to bloodshot. I was well away from them so I was shocked at the damage. I couldn't see any fragments as the bullet was so pulverized it again was just the mix of damaged organs and blood. I just took the rear quarters due to the damage.

I agree that anti-hunters use this topic to drive their agenda, but saying it's not an issue probably isn't correct either.

 

[The Harbor Master]

Anyone ever bite down on lead split shots when they were a kid? I still do. I'm thinking that's what happened to me.

I still do... and every time I do, I think "ehhh I probably should stop doing that."

 

[eric1115]

I directly know someone that had very high levels of lead when tested likely from all the shooting/reloading he was doing as a competition shooter. Exposure was very likely from the primers, dust, handling cases, etc.

On the other topic of lead in meat. I had two recent experiences that have gotten me to evaluate the issue:

1) Hit deer with 140ELD-M in 6.5x55. Fragmented bullet caused bloodshot of localized area. Pulverized organs cause massive bleeding into the body cavity and lead particles likely contaminated more meat.

2) Another deer with .223 V-Max into chest. Lost half of backsteaks due to bloodshot. I was well away from them so I was shocked at the damage. I couldn't see any fragments as the bullet was so pulverized it again was just the mix of damaged organs and blood. I just took the rear quarters due to the damage.

I agree that anti-hunters use this topic to drive their agenda, but saying it's not an issue probably isn't correct either.

The link between risk of elevated BLL and lead dust and compounds encountered via indoor shooting, careless handling of spent cases, etc seems well established to me. So much so that I think it probably accounts for a significant portion of the perceived correlation between game meat and elevated BLL.

Do you have evidence that supports the position that ingesting fragments of lead bullets happens and that if it does, that it contributes to elevated BLL?

 

[Pharmseller]

I used to make hats. I’m crazier than a shithouse rat.




P

 

[bergie]

I’ll give you a hint- because there are no studies that show it does, because it doesn’t.

Can you attach the peer reviewed studies that show that it doesn't?

The study you (presumably) have that proves that there is no harm caused would quickly put an end to this discussion.

Edited to include the a quote from the OP asking for that specifically:

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?

 

[Southern Lights]

The link between risk of elevated BLL and lead dust and compounds encountered via indoor shooting, careless handling of spent cases, etc seems well established to me. So much so that I think it probably accounts for a significant portion of the perceived correlation between game meat and elevated BLL.

Do you have evidence that supports the position that ingesting fragments of lead bullets happens and that if it does, that it contributes to elevated BLL?

I have read what is out there, but I think there are some things being missed. I'd want to know what happens with meat contaminated with lead and prepared with acidic ingredients like vinegar, juices, etc. I am wondering if this could cause the metallic form of lead to leach out into something that could be a bigger issue. I don't know, but I have some lead test kits here and am likely to try a few things to test the idea. I'm no chemist. Just curious.

I understand the arguments that metallic lead may not be harmful, etc. But I can't come up with any situation where eating lead is preferable to not.

 

[Formidilosus]

Can you attach the peer reviewed studies that show that it doesn't?

The study you (presumably) have that proves that there is no harm caused would quickly put an end to this discussion.

Edited to include the a quote from the OP asking for that specifically:

That’s not how it works. You have to prove that there is an issue, if you claim that there is. It’s not on everyone to prove a negative.

If someone claims that watching TV for 5min a day will greatly increase your risk of brain cancer, it isn’t on you to prove that it won’t- it’s on them to show and prove that it does. The OP laid out pretty well the issues with current “research” on it already. The reason that there are no legitimate research showing that game meat killed with lead bullets increases BLL when accounting for other factors- is because there isn’t any that show that it is. The only things that have been done is emotional hooks like a picture of a deer from an X-Ray with lead particles purposely put there to show “what could happen”. Or the “grind every single scrap up from every deer- don’t even try to remove projectiles, then let’s X-ray the packaged meat and see if lead exists. Or, shoot deer with fragmenting lead bullets in the chest, then gut them and spray them out (washing the inside chest contents all over the animal) and x-ray the whole carcass and show lead deposits all over the uncleaned, untrimmed, unpacked meat. No doubt those are non-biased actions.

 

[HandgunHTR]

For those looking.

Here you go: https://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/hac/pha/LeadFragmentsinVenison/Venison and Lead HC 110408.pdf

BTW, it took me exactly 5 seconds to Google this.

For those that aren't going to read it it basically states that "based on modeling", "there is a predicted risk in elevated levels in children consuming venison shot with lead ammunition.". Note, it doesn't say they actually found that. It says that they predict it based on their model.
It then goes on to conclude; "Because elevated blood lead has not been confirmed among consumers of venison, and because the measured lead content in venison varies greatly, there is an indeterminate public health hazard among those consumers." (emphasis is theirs). Again, for those who are having a hard time figuring out what that means, it means that they didn't find anybody who had a increased lead level in their blood that could be correlated with eating venison that had been shot with lead, so they can't make a determination on if it is bad or not.

 

[eric1115]

That’s not how it works. You have to prove that there is an issue, if you claim that there is. It’s not on everyone to prove a negative.

If someone claims that watching TV for 5min a day will greatly increase your risk of brain cancer, it isn’t on you to prove that it won’t- it’s on them to show and prove that it does. The OP laid out pretty well the issues with current “research” on it already. The reason that there are no legitimate research showing that game meat killed with lead bullets increases BLL when accounting for other factors- is because there isn’t any that show that it is. The only things that have been done is emotional hooks like a picture of a deer from an X-Ray with lead particles purposely put there to show “what could happen”. Or the “grind every single scrap up from every deer- don’t even try to remove projectiles, then let’s X-ray the packaged meat and see if lead exists. Or, shoot deer with fragmenting lead bullets in the chest, then gut them and spray them out (washing the inside chest contents all over the animal) and x-ray the whole carcass and show lead deposits all over the uncleaned, untrimmed, unpacked meat. No doubt those are non-biased actions.

I absolutely agree with you that proving the negative is not the standard.

The problem I'm seeing increasingly, is that the "research" gets referenced as sort of a trump card that settles the question. Like, "we have scientific studies that back our claim, you have nothing but assertions and anecdotes."

Do you have a source that we can look at that details the flaws in the methodology (for example I've heard that the processors were told to do little or no trimming, but never found a source for that beyond people just stating it to be the case)?

There is research that claims to demonstrate the affirmative for the case, claims to meet the correct burden of proof, and I'm hoping we can compile some sort of body of well sources knowledge that can be used to support a legitimate evidence based argument, wherever it may lead.

 

[goathunter]

Careful when you bite