Lead poisening from venison

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Last Post 01 December 2013

Standard Member

Lefty posted this 18 April 2008

Those of you from the upper midwest may have heard all of this but others may not.

About 2 months ago a professor at the University of North Dakota xrayed several packages of venison from the freezer. As he is a hunter - self assessment - I am not sure if it was his freezer or someone elses. What he discovered was that more than 40% of the packages xrayed contained at least trace particles of lead. This fact was seemingly independent of what cut of meat was being considered. My first assumption was that he was looking only at ground venison from near the wound but that was not the case.

ND, Minnesota and Wisconsin have robust programs for hunters to donate venison to food shelves. As you might imagine, the good professors findings have created quite a flap. ND summarily destroyed all of the remaining venison in the food shelves. Recently Minnesota, after xraying their own samples of venison, arrived at strikingly similar if not higher percentages of contaminated venison. All of the venison in Minnesota food shelves has now been destroyed also I believe. Wisconsin is reported still studying the issue.

Am I correct that California banned lead bullets for hunting some time in the recent past. Up here on the tundra we have assumed we are immune from that type of legislation. The Minnesota DNR is at the very least broaching the topic of bullets which contain no lead. We are not immune on the Tundra I fear.

I for one am not quite sure what this will all mean ultimately. This revelation might die a quiet death, OR NOT. I am not even entirely sure it should die a quiet death. Of course I will not quit hunting deer as I like venison and the hunt too much for that. I may rethink what I consider to be the optimal shot placement, however.

I hope there are readers who have more expertise regarding lead poisoning than I possess and that these readers will weigh in. I think it is important for us to be able to discuss this topic knowledgably when it comes up from the antis - and it will.

Good shooting and good hunting.

Lefty

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Standard Member

Lefty posted this 18 April 2008

There was another article in Outdoor News today. It had a couple of interesting facts. First the Minnesota study found that 25% of the venison tested had lead fragment but only 1 sample of venison which was not ground have any appreciable lead present. The samples from the southern part of the state - shotgun zone - had much less lead.

Iowa reports that they are find very little lead in the venison there. Again it seems as though a slow moving lead projectile is not the problem and more importantly research is recognizing the difference.

Clearly how you harvest and how you process can greatly reduce the contamination.

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CBA Member

Brodie posted this 18 April 2008

Lefty; I suspect tht a lkot of the contamination came from a careless processor, who ground up some lead, and particles were left in the grinder spreading them throughout all other ground meat. Furthermore, xray is not a conclusive test for lead, ground up bone chips 9we've all found them in a burger at one time or another) will also leave an opaque spot on the film as bone is much denser than meat. Sounds to me like the proff needs to tighten up his methodology a bit before making such broad conclusions.

B.E.Brickey

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Standard Member

CB posted this 18 April 2008

Lefty, California wants to outlaw lead projectiles to save their wonderful California Condor (glorified vulture). The claim is they are eating carcass remains of shot predators and wounded shot game not retrieved by the hunter.

I worked in a factory with lead for 32 years. Lead never poisoned any worker. Lead is toxic, to normal healthy adults. Lead is more harmful to children and people of propagating age to have children. If a worker tested high lead-blood level, he was pulled off the job in direct contact with lead and the body's system will flush itself of the toxic substance.

The status 'brains' of society today have moved lead into a near relationship with Arsenic, and now with all other heavy metals as all being poison. The gun anti's of course will allie with the lead ban. Then the veggies also will throw into the ban. It will be a battle hard to win in the end. The ignorant society falls for the propaganda in the name of righteousness to save ourselves from such a poison.

I'm disgusted with the greenies. They hound us few and condemn our actions as fault for their assumed theories of doom. The best I could find, Jet Turbine fuel still contains most all chemicals that have been outlawed in almost all other industries since 25 years ago. Jet Turbine emissions contain more carcinogenic compounds than about anything that has ever been exposed to the human race. My pick-up tailpipe emission is measured by the pound and is cleaned by a catalytic converter. A Jet Turbine engine emission is measured by the TON, TONNAGE! You calculate that; times 25,000-30,000 flights per day just in the US. Who's the gas hogs? Who's the polluters? Sorry Lefty, didn't mean to get carried away, ya got me goin' ya know. :X

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Standard Member

Lefty posted this 19 April 2008

Just raising awareness,Dan. Of the political threat that is. This mornigs Minneapolis Startribune billed this topic as it front page article this morning. I am not concerned about getting lead poisoning. I am concerned about losing my ability to hunt with cast lead bullets.:hunt:

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Standard Member

jhalcott posted this 19 April 2008

I would want some NON politically Correct organisations to due a REAL study about this BEFORE it gets out of hand. The whacko's will jump on this real quick, accurate info or not,trying to get our guns and hunting shut down. If we as hunters and shooters continue to be quiet, we will be over run by those the squeal the loudest!

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CBA Member

giorgio de galleani posted this 19 April 2008

We in Italy had elections last week end and kicked the greenie and communist party out of the congress and senate.There are still a lot of ex communist liberals in our democrat party led by a loser that is monkeying the US liberal rich people ,but the worst are now out of action.

We hope to get some decent hunting rules and a better gun law from the new prime minister ,Mr Berlusconi.

I am a 61 old phisician and have never seen or heard anyone damaged by lead,except ,three hunters shot with nÃ‚Â°5 shot,another with a 12 Ga Brenneke in the back , a 32 in a leg , a 9mm trough a hand. and a border policeman shot by a small caliber bullet is his side. A Carabiniere had a nasty birdshot wound in his thigh,a short range shot,They all survived the lead intoxication. I live in a rather quiet province.

Galenus used to say” dosis facit farmacum"the dose makes the medicine,and in greek farmakon means medicine and venom.

Mere traces of a subtance do not mean neither illness or risk.

I'll ask a colleague of mine,a specialist in workers medicine,prevention and publc health about this improbable lead contamination of game meat.I 'll tell the membership the Italian data on lead related disease.

In human medicine lead blood level are meaningless,they do not show any illness, they just show the level of lead exposition.

I believe it is a phobic delirium of liberal antiguns and the makers of non lead bullets are throwing gasoline in the fire.

The threat of this antihunting false propaganda is serious and I'll try to give the membership some ideas of the methods for combat it.

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CBA Member

LWesthoff posted this 19 April 2008

I was hoping Giorgio would jump in on this one!

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CBA Member

Ed Harris posted this 21 April 2008

I agree that this sounds like sloppy lab procedure from a group which had a political agenda. I worked in the firearms industry for over 20 years. During that time my blood lead levels were continually monitored, because I was suibjected to occupational exposures as a range safety officer and test and development, and later quality assurance engineer. I was then a more active hunter and ate all manner of wild game, including upland birds and waterfowl before the lead shot ban.

During that time the only time I ever experienced elevated blood lead was not attributed to the job exposure, but was isolated to the fact that I bought a second-hand chain saw and rebuilt the 2-cycle gasoline engine myself and I had used leaded gasoline to clean the engine parts and had not worn gloves.

Medically supervised high dosages of Vitamin C and calcium citrate were effective in reducing my blood lead in about 6 months.

I'm still an avid reloader and bullet caster and shoot weekly on an indoor range and have my blood lead monitored yearly. I have not since had elevated blood lead, thanks to good casting bench and indoor range ventilation, frequent hand washing, and good basic industrial decontamination procedures after such activities and before taking any food or drink.

Common sense, Gentlemen!

73 de KE4SKY In Home Mix We Trust From the Home of Ed's Red in "Almost Heaven" West Virginia

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Mnshooter posted this 21 April 2008

A couple or three years ago I shot a nice deer with a jacket 8mm bullet and recovered the jacket somewhere in the hind quarter. The rest of the bullet had to have gone somewhere in the deer as it did not exit. but went a long way through the deer. The cast bullets we use go through and leave little or no lead fragments. I grew up eating a lot of game birds where I spit out bird shot. Know a lot of people that did also. Knew some woodsy types that didn't eat a lot of beef due but a lot of vensison. Most are still as healthy as the normal population. Somehow, some knothead discovered something that has been going on for a long time and is trying to make himself or herself look important to impress someone else. I work with people like that. Minneapolis Tribune had a field day with it, even found hunters worried about poisening their families or misquoted them. I used to work with the press at one time and was amazed at their inability to get anything resembling the facts straight. A county auditor and I were talking about it and she commented that they don't go to the same council and commissioner meetings we did. Minnesota just pulled all the venison off of food shelves because of this scare. Even though they admit that any ingested lead would likely pass on through. I saw the same kind of damn fool attitude when I served as a volunteer on the ambulance. At one time they did not want EMT's to use CPR because we might break a rib. You use CPR on someone that is clinically dead. Its damn hard to hurt someone in that condition. Now they have wised up and even let us use defibs. Other treatments were a long time in coming for similar reasons. What's scary about these scares is the the way the beaurecrat's react to them. Anyone remember the big cranberry scare debacle many years ago?

Northmn

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Standard Member

fourfingersofdeath posted this 21 April 2008

Just because it's got lead in it, doesn't mean it's going to give you lead poisioning. You are only going to hold onto it for a day or so before it is flushed away. If that amount of contact with lead was a problem, we'd all be dead by now. Chew your food :D spit out the lead, throw it in the pot and pass it on to another critter.

Mick.

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Standard Member

CB posted this 27 April 2008

We have been eating stuff that has been taken with lead bullets for many years, as well as lots of birds with shoot shells. I haven't seen too many people with blue finger nails and gums around here, so it must be sloppy lab work or a poor butcher.

Jerry

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Standard Member

Suo Gan posted this 25 November 2008

There is so much bad news lately that I hate to think about it. But, after some research I have discovered that the antis are indeed behind this lead scare, and it has several prongs. First, I live in Northern California. My area is not affected by the ban on lead hunting bullets yet. Because the California Condor resides just south and west of me, encompassing the lower part of the state http://www.2ndamendmentsports.com/news.php/2007/12/18/wider_lead_ban_in_condor_range>http://www.2ndamendmentsports.com/news.php/2007/12/18/widerleadbanincondorrange. This was when I started paying attention to this (is'nt that always the case). So I started looking more closely, and discovered that this phenomena is occuring throughout the country. In Wyoming:http://www.casperstartribune.net/articles/2008/11/12/news/wyoming/150acba7055851e28725750000048096.txt>http://www.casperstartribune.net/articles/2008/11/12/news/wyoming/150acba7055851e28725750000048096.txt

I just listed a couple of the anti lead bullet articles of the hundreds that list lead bullets as the number one killer of endangered birds of prey, and mammals like grizzly bears, wolverines, lynx etc. To my knowledge every US state has at least one potential endangered specie that could and probably would eat the offal of big game shot by hunters. These people are really acting as if the lead bans that have happened so far are saving thier particular species. They are calling for a total ban of lead bullets, bar all. This is how they are attempting to skirt the 2nd Amendment in my opinion, and its working. Who can argue with a sick bald eagle? They will just shut 'er down, period.

Then there is the second prong of the attack and it concerns the banning of wheel weights from auto tires. This will come at the end of 2009, or possibly later due to greivances etc. But this is coming. I would expect that wheelweights will be no more by 2012. Thats about four years for some of us and one year for others.

It seems that lead is becoming public enemy number one.

There is no one that gives a damn about this but us. Think about it, why would even an average hunter really care? They have a Barnes Quadruple Z Mooseslayer right?

I ecourage everyone to research this topic further. Please read these;

http://wildlifepreservation.suite101.com/article.cfm/ban_lead_save_endangered_wildlife>http://wildlifepreservation.suite101.com/article.cfm/banleadsaveendangeredwildlife

http://www.idahostatesman.com/102/story/380671.html>http://www.idahostatesman.com/102/story/380671.html

http://www.wisconsinbirds.org/LeadPoisoningPaper.htm>http://www.wisconsinbirds.org/LeadPoisoningPaper.htm

http://californiahuntingtoday.com/hogblog/2008/05/20/lead-ban-chronicles-peregrine-fund-lead-ammo-conference/>http://californiahuntingtoday.com/hogblog/2008/05/20/lead-ban-chronicles-peregrine-fund-lead-ammo-conference/

http://californiahuntingtoday.com/hogblog/2008/09/05/lead-ban-chronicles-north-dakota-lead-testing-results-coming-in/>http://californiahuntingtoday.com/hogblog/2008/09/05/lead-ban-chronicles-north-dakota-lead-testing-results-coming-in/

Ps I am sorry for hijacking your initial post.

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Standard Member

green onions posted this 19 June 2009

I would not worry about lead poisoning. Just cut out the meat that had contact with the bullet. You would have to eat a lot of meat with lead in it. The body will filter lead out on it's own. There is not enough data on this subject (game with lead). There is difference between lead poisoning and lead exposure.

I been given blood test for lead exposure before and after we do lead abatement. I will eat game witlhout any worries. I would not give it to my children if it was from a few inches of contact of lead bullet. You and I can take some amounts of lead exposure but young kids can not.

In the mid 90s' we had lead scare when contractor tore down part of walls of a building at the place I work at. We did not have any data back then, and we did alots of testing along with blood work. We learn alot after this happen and we been given lots of traning on the subject. My lead level in my blood had drop after we had been given training and knowledge of route of entry and I am around or exposed to more lead than ever before.:D

Just my 2 cents

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olesmokey posted this 10 July 2013

We are all gonna die sooner or later. From my experience with old timers there doesnt seem to be much point in living past 90 or much likelihood for that matter, so eat lead while the sun shines...>

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CBA Member

LWesthoff posted this 10 July 2013

When I was a kid, my cousins and I ate a whole lot of dove, quail, cottontail and an occasional ringneck, and enjoyed every bite. When we came to a piece of birdshot, we spit it out on the plate, but I'm sure we didn't get them all. Later, after I grew up, I enjoyed an occasional deer or black bear, which were harvested with lead core bullets with an exposed lead tip.

I'm 85 now, and I just had open heart surgery, aortic valve replacement and a bypass, and the Doc has told me I should be good for another 15 years, if I don't step out in front of a truck.

Just think, if I hadn't eaten all that lead contaminated meat, I'd be able to look forward to living to a ripe old age

Wes

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Standard Member

onondaga posted this 10 July 2013

Lead poisoning is a strong argument to support the use of Lyman #2 alloy and a strong argument against the use of lead bullets made from any alloy more brittle than Lyman #2 or softer than #2 for harvesting game that will be eaten.

Jacketed bullets with a soft core that splatters as the jackets rip open is where the lead contamination comes from. That and cast bullets soft enough to splatter or brittle enough to fragment.

Lyman knew this over 100 years ago when they invented their #2 alloy with 90% Lead, 5% Tin and 5% Antimony. #2 alloy only needs an easy to achieve with hunting rifles 1,000 foot pounds impact energy to expand double in caliber and retain 100% bullet weight. #2 does this because of the balance of Tin and Antimony in the alloy that is malleable when it strikes game and doesn't splatter or fragment.

Over 100 years now Lyman has been correct yet there is still people shooting Linotype and harder, more brittle alloys at game along with softer splattering alloys too. You don't need to experiment to find the perfect hunting alloy , It has been around for over 100 years.

Gary

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CBA Member

tturner53 posted this 10 July 2013

The reality of it all isn't really the issue. The politics is. Powerful and determined BUSINESSES such as the center for biological diversity have discovered the potential goldmine of milking anti hunters and are carrying the non-lead flag for all it's worth. We just dodged that bullet here in our legislature by a hair. They're coming.

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CBA Member

R. Dupraz posted this 10 July 2013

In the words of one of my hero's, the late General Stormin Norman Schwarzkoph........

BOVINE SCAFOLA!

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Standard Member

oscarflytyer posted this 11 July 2013

IMO... Lead poisoning from eating venison - total bunk. And, I have no fear. I cut out all shot up meat.

Maybe this study was on meat from a butcher that mixes/grinds all the meat it gets?!?

Any/either way, I could care less. People have been eating tons of hunted/bullet killed meat for decades - and I personally do not know of anyone who has died of lead poisoning from eating hunted meat!

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madsenshooter posted this 15 July 2013

Elemental lead is poorly absorbed in the gastrointestinal tract, most, if not all is excreted. What the greenies don't get is that it's the organic forms of lead that are toxic. Along those lines, I had an old friend who was a mechanic. I think washing his hands in leaded gasoline everyday for 40yrs is what finally got to him, but even at that, it didn't get him until he was 82!

Lead poisening from venison

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