Lead Ban Chronicles – New Report on Lead Exposure from Venison
The folks at the Peregrine Fund have been busy, working on research to support the argument that lead bullet fragments present a health risk to humans. The research is now complete, and the results are available for review at the Peregrine Fund website.
While I strongly recommend reading the entire thing and making your own conclusions, here’s a synopsis of what I took away after my first review.
The experiement consisted of two groups of pigs, a control group and a test group. The test group would be fed venison that had been shot under normal hunting conditions. The specific details are listed in the document, but from what I read the samples were fairly realistic for comparison. The pigs were tested six times over the course of nine days.
The results were that the test group of pigs showed a higher blood-lead level than the control group over the first three days, but over the final three tests, the test group and control group showed about the same results. The researchers explain this as the lead dispersing through the body to be stored in soft tissues and bone.
What does it mean? Here’s what the study author said:
“We interpret the absorption of lead into the bloodstream of our test animals as clear evidence that humans can absorb lead from ingested bullet fragments,” said Grainger Hunt, lead author of the study.
So, the truth is that the test really only demonstrates that humans can be exposed to lead by eating animals harvested with fragmenting lead bullets. I don’t think anyone really disputes that. The discussion does go on about potential toxicity, but falls significantly short of proving a connection between lead-killed venison and lead poisoning.
In other words, as far as I can see, this research really doesn’t do anything that the North Dakota and CDC research didn’t already prove… that we can, and probably do, ingest lead fragments when we eat game that was shot with fragmenting lead bullets. There is still no medical record or evidence to suggest that this presents more than a nominative health risk. I’m still watching as this all unwinds, because I do think it’s prudent to do so, but the case has yet to be made.
So read it, and make up your own minds. Do you think I’m letting my own biased opinion overrule science here, or are these guys still belaboring the obvious without shedding new light on the risks lead bullets may pose to human health?
[...] Original post by The Hog Blog [...]
April 27th, 2009 at 12:50 pm
[...] The Hog Blog added an interesting post today on Lead Ban Chronicles – New Report on Lead Exposure from VenisonHere’s a small readingThe folks at the Peregrine Fund have been busy, working on research to support the argument that lead bullet fragments present a health risk to humans. The research is now complete, and the results are available for review at the Peregrine Fund website . While I strongly recommend reading the entire thing and making your own conclusions, here’s a synopsis of what I took away after my first review. The experiement consisted of two groups of pigs, a control group and a test group. The test [...]
April 27th, 2009 at 1:45 pm
It seems to me that all their findings conclude is that we humans can absorb lead into our bodies. No kidding? I think I could have told them that and saved them a bunch of money.
It didn’t answer the one question that I was looking for. And that is do we absorb enough lead into our bloodstream – after eating an animal shot with a lead bullet – that is enough to pose a serious health risk?
I don’t feel that is the case, but it would have been nice if this particular thing was specifically addressed.
I agree with you, Phillip. I think they are just stating the obvious, and not shedding any new light on what the real risk to human health is.
April 27th, 2009 at 5:40 pm
I still think that a hunter who cleans and butchers his game properly, including carefully cutting away the meat around the entry and exit wounds, is not likely to experience meaningful lead ingestion, if any. The question is not whether we can absorb ingested lead, but how to prevent ingesting it in the first place. Some obviously think banning lead bullets altogether is the answer. I think using quality, non-fragmenting ammo and cleaning game properly is the answer.
April 27th, 2009 at 8:36 pm
I believe the CDC and the scientific study they released. They’re in the business of evaluating whats harmful to humans.
The Peregrine Falcon fund seems to be more concerned with rabble-rousing then the preservation of raptors.
April 28th, 2009 at 9:07 am
I spend some time reading the references cited in the study and found quited a few that originated from the Peregrine Fund. Bad practice to cite your own studies.
Of note, however, where a few studies done in Canada among the First Nations people and the Inuit in Greenland. Those studies did show elevated blood leads in humans. Not suprising, really. Those two populations rely heavily on wild game for subsistence. Not the case here in the U.S. where we sport hunt.
We do, in fact, ingest lead from big game, but we don’t do it in sufficent quantities to cause health problems. Here in CA, we’re allowed 2 deer. Really not enough lead in the diet to make a difference.
Waterfowl, on the other hand, routinely ingest spent lead pellets in the craw to aid digestion, causing bio-accumlation that can cause systemic poisioning of the bird. Hence the well documented and studied change to non-lead
shot.
I just don’t believe there’s any significant risk to the big game hunter.
April 28th, 2009 at 10:03 am
Thanks for the input, fellas.
Arthur, you’re right… this paper only reiterates the results of the CDC/North Dakota testing. Yes, blood-lead levels increase when people eat venison containing lead fragments. That does indicate a potential risk. But there’s no record that the additional lead level results in illness.
Bill, you’re definitely onto a key point. You don’t have to ban lead if you want to prevent the ingestion of lead bullet fragments. A combination of careful shot placement, good butchering procedures, and possibly using less frangible bullets (e.g. bonded bullets), will alleviate the majority of the lead fragment risk.
Neither the First Nation Cree study, nor the Inuit studies presented any clear evidence of toxic lead levels, although both did indicate some accumulation in the blood, teeth, and bones. In both cases, however, the researchers indicated that more research was warranted. I tend to agree with that point of view, since tracking something as subtle as lead toxicity from such a specific source would seem (to me) to require an extended study of both control and test subjects over a period of years.
This seems even more critical to me, since the current research has definitely indicated that there is no immediate health risk (no one gets sick immediately after consuming lead-shot venison), but there is this implied cumulative toxicity that may have impacts later.
I still want to know the truth, and these guys (Peregrine Fund et al) aren’t doing a very good job at getting to it either way… although I honestly don’t expect them to ever admit that their research showed there’s no risk whatsoever… anymore than I expect the NRA/NSSF to admit that their research shows there IS a risk.
Leaves those of us who really want to know in kind of a tricky spot, no?
April 28th, 2009 at 2:04 pm
I hope you don’t mind me adding a comment, as one of the authors of the paper in discussion.
Many of us at the PFund are hunters. We were surprised during our earlier studies on behalf of condors, around 2003-5, to see all the bullet fragments in the x-rays of deer we shot, and even more so when we looked at x-rays of the venison we got back from the butcher. We wondered then about potential human health effects, and when we looked into the published science we were astounded to learn how very tiny amounts of lead cause horrible problems, especially for children. Most of this research on low lead levels is new, published in only the past 5-10 years, so it is understandable that not many people really know about it.
Although we had this insight, we couldn’t go public with it until we had done the research systematically. The paper just published is the result of a study we began in fall 2007 and to my knowledge, this paper is the first peer reviewed and published science that follows lead from a bullet in the hand, all the way through to increased blood lead levels after eating venison, with all the tests to prove that it is the same source of lead. The CDC study and others from Minnesota, Wisconsin, North Dakota, and Iowa last year provide parts of the story, some of the links, but none are peer reviewed and published in scientific journals (yet)….all are useful reports when used in the proper context, though.
I’d like to clear up an important point about our study. It demonstrates a health risk from lead in venison, but it does not demonstrate a health effect. There is no way to do that without a long-term study of people who eat venison compared with people who do not. There are too many variables involved, from who is eating the venison (child/adult, male/female, pregnant women, etc), how often it is eaten (daily, such as communities in Alaska, to once a year and everything in between), and over what time period (one week, one year, or a lifetime), plus many confounding sources of lead to account for, such as in old paint, ceramics, electronics, etc. A well-designed study could take a decade to complete, so we have encouraged the public health community to do this research, but I don’t think you will see results too soon (is my guess).
There are serious known health effects of lead at levels that were considered trivial until recently (e.g., intellectual decrement in children, increased probability of dying of a heart attack or stroke in adults). The CDC stated in 2005 that there is no safe minimum level of lead in the blood. So, given that conclusion by health professionals, and our conclusion that bullet lead ends up in your blood, it seems reasonable to conclude that there is a health risk from eating venison shot with lead-based bullets. Does it really matter what that risk is, or “how harmful” it is?
At least hunters now know with some certainty what we figured out a few years ago, along with our best shot at assessing the frequency of the risk (32% of venison packages were contaminated in our study, others have found from 20 to 60% rates….a lot of variability, little predictability).
I encourage you to read a paper by Michael J. Kosnett, a lead toxicologist with the Centers for Disease Control, on an estimate of that risk: Health Effects of Low Dose Lead Exposure in Adults and Children, and Preventable Risk Posed by the Consumption of Game Meat Harvested with Lead Ammunition online at
http://www.peregrinefund.org/Lead_conference/PDF/0103%20Kosnett.pdf
Sorry we can’t tell you more, but we have done our best to document the facts as far as we can. The rest is up to public health researchers.
April 29th, 2009 at 3:10 pm
Rick, thank you for chiming in with great info. You’re welcome and appreciated here… as is anyone with an opinion to be offered respectfully.
That said, I don’t think you and I are all that far apart in what we’re reading from this, and I agree… there’s enough there to justify continued research. There’s no question that we ingest some of that lead, and between your work and the work in North Dakota, First Nation Cree, and Inuit… well, there’s also no question we’re absorbing some of it. That should give anyone pause, especially nursing mothers and parents of small children.
I do have to admit though, short of that, I’m simply not convinced there’s a significant risk to hunters from the lead we get from our venison… and the risk that has been identified can be mitigated through measures other than a legislated ban on the use of lead ammunition. I also believe that those measures should be the decision of the individual, not a mandate driven by any special interest group (no matter how well-intentioned).
I think it’s great that the Peregrine Fund and other organizations are at least attempting to get to the facts and realities about the risks posed by lead ammo. It’s a necessary thing. But I also think response and recommendation should be tempered until all of the facts are available.
April 29th, 2009 at 6:35 pm
Phillip: We agree that individuals should be able to make the decision for themselves. Along with AZGFD we have gone to great effort to provide our insight to hunters in northern Arizona (since 2005), and now in southern Utah (wherever we track foraging condors) so they can make informed choices. In Arizona last season, 90% of hunters in condor range chose to use lead-free bullets or carry all the remains out of the field….we have great partners to work with! It’s a conservation success story that doesn’t get enough attention.
April 30th, 2009 at 6:30 am
Dr Watson,
Thanks for posting here. It’s always useful to have additional information in order to make an informed decision.
I don’t think any hunter will disagree with you that there is some level of risk involved with using lead based ammunition. It’s really a matter for the hunter to decide what level of risk is acceptable. In the industrial hygiene community there is a phrase, “the dose makes the poison.”
We all know driving is risky, cause’s fatalities, and yet, we accept that risk. The perceived benefit outweighs the potential for harm.
I agree that research needs to be done. However, the release of the information and the subsequent media feeding frenzy caused a panic in ND and other states. That was poorly handled. Suddenly, the non-hunting public and the politicians are involved. People that have “no dog in the fight” are enacting public health laws dictating what the hunters can and can’t use.
Honestly, why should a person who doesn’t eat lead-shot wild game have any input in the decision process of hunters? Rather, shouldn’t hunters make that personnel choice based on the available evidence? Eventually, the ND public health folks produced what I thought was a reasonable approach, one that the affected public could work with.
Here in CA, we’re in the first year of the Ridley-Tree Condor Act. Already, the distinction between risk to the condor and risk to human health is becoming fuzzy. The “public” can’t, or won’t separate the two issues. That gray area adversely impacts our sport and places a large burden on a hunter population constantly under scrutiny. When controversial laws get passed in CA, they have a nasty habit of spreading throughout the country.
Sure there’s some risk, but the zero defect , zero tolerance approach isn’t the answer.
April 30th, 2009 at 8:17 am
Dan, you are right. Hunters should be able to make their own informed choices. Our goal has been to provide what information we can.
I can’t comment on the ND panic, or actions in Wisconsin, Minnesota, etc. because we were not involved.
Granted, it was a PFund Board member who sampled the venison in ND, but his study was independent of us, and the response to the results was entirely the ND Health Dept’s.
I understand why the Health Dept. did what they did, though. The recipients of donated meat don’t have the opportunity to choose the bullets used to harvest the game, so the Health Dept. must have felt a responsibility to intervene on their behalf. I guess recipients could be told about the possibility of lead in venison and then could choose not to eat the meat at all, but I can imagine that would be really hard to do when you are hungry. Better to make sure they don’t have to make the awful choice between hunger or lead. Given that low income folks often live in older housing where lead paint is still the leading source of lead exposure in the U.S., they don’t need any additional sources of lead exposure in their lives, no matter how small it may seem to you and me.
April 30th, 2009 at 9:40 am
Rick thanks again. Your comments add a ton of value to the discussion.
I think something that could possibly be addressed is the perception, both among hunters and members of the public, that the Peregrine Fund is pushing for legislated lead bans, rather than the voluntary approach you’ve described above. I think if this were marketed a little more clearly, the Fund would find less resistance from hunters… but that’s just my opinion.
I’m a strong supporter of the AZGFD’s solution, and really wish it had been better publicized and adopted here in CA (a lot of folks still don’t even know CA tried to get hunters to voluntarily switch, and even offered vouchers for non-lead ammo prior to the passage of the Ridley-Tree Act). Not only do I think hunters will make the right choices based on good information and education, I also think there needs to be leeway for the hunters who cannot find effective, accurate, lead-alternative ammo for their guns (and that is still a substantial subset of the hunting population).
April 30th, 2009 at 10:24 pm
Once the price comes down, you’ll hear a bit less grumbling. Its tough for a hunter on a budget, to have to decide on a decent set of hiking boots or two boxes of ammo.
E-tips are $45 a box, for crying out loud!
May 1st, 2009 at 5:53 am
Phillip: Thanks for the advice.
The notion that The Peregrine Fund is pushing for legislated bans is a fabrication, along with much other misinformation that has been parroted by undiscerning media.
We adopted a voluntary and collaborative approach to working out a solution back in 2005 when we realized what needed to happen to ensure condors could survive without the intense management we do annually to keep them alive in the wild. In Arizona we trap and test every individual condor every year, some several times/year, and chelate any with high lead levels above ~60 ug/dl (70% of the AZ population in 2006, the worst year; it has improved since then as a result of the AZGFD voluntary lead-free bullet program). This intense effort serves both management and research purposes.
We have commented on some of the misinformation that has been published in recent months, on our website at:
http://www.peregrinefund.org/pdfs/condor/Commentary%20on%20Smear%20and%20Fear%204.pdf
It has been very frustrating to endure the lies told about us. We figure the truth will be understood once the weight of evidence is known, so we just keep plugging away at publishing solid information.
May 1st, 2009 at 7:56 am
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June 7th, 2009 at 5:47 pm