Is lead toxicity from hunting ammo real?

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Contrary to conspiracy theories bandied about on hunting boards, there is no end goal of limiting firearms by falsely claiming that raptors and vultures are dying from lead poisoning.

I'm not sure that is completely true. The state of California has already banned all lead bullets for hunting and has been actively moving legislation forward to ban lead bullets for all other uses as well. Yes there are non-lead big game bullets available, but its not really viable for rimfire nor most anything people shoot in volume. Whether it's the goal or not the practical effect will be the same when all your existing ammunition becomes illegal.
 
I mis-spoke, I meant to say "besides poaching". Trauma and lead poisoning are the two top causes of death for Eagles today. Trauma can be caused by many things, including gunshots, just as poaching can be done by poisoning. This is how most fish farms and game farms illegally eliminate Eagles preying on their crop.



Our state DNR has been adamantly advising hunters to be aware of the possibility of lead poisoning from eating game harvested with lead projectiles, especially for children and pregnant/nursing women. Here's a good link from our neighbor Minnesota......
https://www.grandforksherald.com/no...-7-of-Minnesota-venison-laced-with-toxic-lead




Deer hunting with firearms here runs from early October thru January. While lead ingestion is seasonal, it's a long season. Hard for Eagles to eat fish when the lakes, rivers and streams are frozen. Finding and eating frozen deer carcasses is easier. It takes a lead fragment the size of a grain of rice to kill an Eagle (One #5 pellet). Lead does not naturally leave the Eagles body, but will accumulate over long periods of time till it becomes lethal. This is the same with DDT. Turkey Vultures do get lead poisoning, but folks don't have the same emotions about them as they do Eagles and other Raptors. The gizzards in birds tends to grind down lead fragments and makes them easier to be absorbed and harder to eliminate thru fecal material than with mammals. Birds of prey also have very acidic stomachs as opposed to mammals and other birds.

I'm curious about how sloppy a butchering has to be that injestion of bullet fragments is common?

Typically I shoot once. The cup and core, or lead alloy bullet blows through the lungs, and/or the heart or aorta, and pulmonaries, and continues through, to be lost in the landscape. May pass through a shoulder, part of the backstrap, and usually chest or ribs from the side. I field dress it, and save the heart if intact.

Care is taken not to taint the meat, and usually it ages, hide on in the cold garage. Skinning and butchering is done in one session, trimming away blood shot meat, and anything dried out.

Then it gets to my Wife's hands inside, where it's further cut up, trimmed and washed under running water. Not too much waste, but nothing close to having fragments in it makes into the freezer, even the little bit that she grinds or makes into sausage.

Not to sound too uppity, but I'd put my deer up against fairly high falutin restaurants that serve game.

When bullets fragment, it's the more brittle copper jacket that busts into little pieces, where most of the lead stays intact. With monometallic lead slugs, you usually don't see pieces break off.
 
Look, the bottom line is that we know birds ingest lead pellets in the field. We know that from controlled tests in the lab, that birds fed lead pellets get lead poisoning. It would be blatantly stupid to believe that birds in the field eating lead pellets won't get led poisoning. Plenty of birds taken from the field that ate lead pellets have been shown to have lead poisoning, but via symptoms and through tissue analysis.

Are there potentially other sources for lead as well? Sure. That doesn't negate the fact that consumption of lead pellets can cause lead poisoning.

So is lead toxicity from hunting ammo real as per the OP's query? How could it not be?

Even humans get elevated lead levels from eating meat from animals shot with lead bullets.
https://www.outdoorlife.com/is-game-meat-shot-with-lead-safe-to-eat/

The counter argument to the CDC's warning was that the level of lead, on average, did not reach the level of toxicity. This is huge on many levels of consideration. One, it is recognized by folks on both sides of the argument that consuming meat with lead fragments resulted in elevated lead levels. Nobody is claiming that is can't happen.

The ironic thing is that the CDC was mostly issued their warning for pregnant women and children under 6, because for developing kids fetuses and kids, the risk is much higher even at lower levels.



You have a particular issue with the biologists doing the studies or are you making a gross generalization like the left saying we can't be trusted with guns because there are a lot of gun nuts out there?



Well, it has been demonstrated, but the testing was done by biologists and you have discounted the claims of biologists. Do you trust medical doctors, or do you just consider them to be glorified biologists with a narrow field of study?
https://journals.lww.com/pec-online...llet_Ingestion_in_3_Children__Another.15.aspx

I read the Outdoor Life article, but it could not substantiate that hunters have higher than average levels of lead.

I'd also like to know how they got "microscopic" lead particles to penetrate hide, and meat. That's just not reality. Powder can be imbedded in skin of soft, thin skinned humans; but that again is more consistent with close range execution style killings.

It also would fail in accounting that hunters are typically involved in more shooting sports, recreation, and reloading/casting hobbies. Far more lead makes it into a shooters system from airborne means. Shooting indoors accounts for some, but one of the worst is dry media tumble case cleaning.

Couldn't read the 2nd, but a case of 3 kids, with little other life style details isn't conclusive proof that lead poisoning is common among shooters/hunters.
 
Mod note;

As long as we are arguing the merits and facts of the subject at hand this thread will remain open. If it gets anymore personal it’ll be gone.

Carry on.
 
Mod note;

As long as we are arguing the merits and facts of the subject at hand this thread will remain open. If it gets anymore personal it’ll be gone.

Carry on.

You are right, of course. I went back and cleaned up the posts that still had an Edit function. Apologies to all.
 
I do know because of its toxicity, lead was one of the earliest, if not the earliest materials to have workplace safety standards created, to reduce worker exposure. Humans evolved in a world where we have zero exposure to lead, and humans should have zero lead in their bodies.

How does this make you feel? A company promoting the goodness of lead exposure to children:

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Humans vary in their reaction to toxic elements, but have high lead levels, and keep them high, and you will have problems. And you may not like what it does to your body.


The Army Thought He Was Faking His Health Issues. Turns Out He Had Chronic Lead Poisoning

New York: New York Times Company. Apr 3, 2019

At age 30, Stephen Hopkins was back in the Army for a second time. After serving as an enlisted soldier from 1991 to 1995, he returned as an officer in 2000. He was a man who routinely maxed fitness tests and endured physical hardship while deployed to rural locales in Afghanistan. Selected for Special Forces training, Hopkins tackled the demanding courses with gusto, later returning to combat for a total of seven deployments. He had a job he loved and excelled at, and his star was ascending. But in 2005, Hopkins began experiencing wild swings in blood pressure. And he had other symptoms: crippling nausea, constant dizziness, a skyrocketing heart rate. He was given a diagnosis of common high blood pressure, and for a while he felt better by keeping himself on a high dose of a medication for that condition. He was on deployment in Afghanistan when the nausea returned, with migraine symptoms, abnormal thirst and muddled thinking.


Hopkins was sent to Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York for an X-ray fluorescence (XRF) test, a procedure to measure the level of lead in his bones. They were riddled with it: His tibia registered more than two and a half times the level expected in an average American his age, then 42. With that test, Hopkins became the first of 38 service members from 2012 to today tested at Mount Sinai for chronic lead poisoning. Of those, a dozen have measured bone lead levels higher than what is considered normal, including four with almost twice the expected amount. Dozens of other service members have gone to the Cleveland Clinic’s Center for Functional Medicine in Ohio to be treated for lead and other types of metal poisoning. While the number of affected soldiers is small, the diagnosis can be life-changing to these troops, who for years have wrestled with unexplained symptoms that mimic traumatic brain injury or PTSD, including impaired concentration, anger, anxiety and impulsivity, as well as physical manifestations like tremors, high blood pressure, low sperm count and peripheral neuropathy. Lead exposure is a known hazard of military service:


The United States armed forces have fired billions of rounds of ammunition containing the toxic material since entering Afghanistan in October 2001. Troops are exposed to the metal while shooting indoors and outside; gathering shell casings; smoking, chewing tobacco or eating on ranges; cleaning their weapons; and living and fighting in polluted environments. But lead monitoring and testing programs at the Defense Department have focused primarily on service members who work on firing ranges and on the civilian staff at ranges, who are regulated by Occupational Safety and Health Administration guidelines. Defense Department policy requires service members who may be exposed to high levels of airborne lead for 30 or more days a year to get a blood test for lead, with follow-up tests at least annually.


Master Sgt. Geoff Dardia, now 42, began working as a Special Forces training instructor in 2009, teaching high-intensity courses to fellow Green Berets. In a single six-week course, each student would fire upward of 150,000 rounds — and Dardia taught 16 such courses in just over three years. “I lived in shoot houses,” he recalls. By 2009, he was living with an array of debilitating symptoms: fatigue, migraines, muscle loss, double vision, trouble with his balance, high blood pressure and low heart rate. When out on deployment to Afghanistan and elsewhere, he would actually feel better. When he returned home, to Fort Bragg, in North Carolina, things got really bad. “There’d be big blanks where I couldn’t remember large chunks of what I’d done, like driving home,” Dardia said. “At the same time, my mind was racing. I didn’t want to tell anyone, because I was afraid of losing my job.” But eventually, Dardia heard about Hopkins and his symptoms and went to Walter Reed. Dardia was soon on his way to Mount Sinai for an XRF test. The results showed that his bone lead levels were 30 percent higher than normal.


Even the NRA puts out articles about the health risks of lead exposure


LEAD POISONING AND THE SHOOTER pages 32-35 Shooting Sports October 2014


https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/nra/ssusa_201410/index.php?startid=21#/p/32

I do not know how much lead is deposited in game from shot, or bullet fragments, and I don't know how many lead fragments could cause issues. But I think it is prudent to remove lead pellets from game and be worried about cracking a tooth on a bullet fragment!

Don't fool yourself that lead accumulation from shooting is not real. The greatest exposure to lead, in my opinion, is from cast lead bullets, lead styphnate primers, handguns, and poorly ventilated indoor ranges.

At one time the OHSA work place limit was 80 micro grams of lead per cubic meter, and one round of a 158 L 38 Special bullets blows 5600 micro grams of element lead in front of your face! And you are breathing that! That lead goes in your nose, in your lungs, into your bloodstream, and it stays in you.

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As previously stated i've been diagnosed with lead poisoning twice. Both times i was exposed to lead dust and fumes while burning huge quantities of small arms ammunition. Last time was in 1991-2 while destroying unserviceable US Army ammunition from Desert Storm. At the beginning i cleaned out the burn pits using an end loader and without wearing proper PPE. Big boo boo.

The only problems i noticed were slight lethargy, frequent headaches and tingling sensation in face hands and feet. Came home and was hired by an environmental remediation company. After being on the job several weeks the company environmental health guy looked at my blood tests which were extremely high for lead. He ordered new tests which showed the lead levels were still very high. The doctor recommended chelation therapy. i opted instead to take large daily doses of vitamin C. Within a month my lead levels were back to normal.

At age 82 i suffer no known effects from my experience. As a muzzleloader shooter i wear nitrile gloves while handling lead.

Yep, those are loaded SAW magazines on the pile:

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I think the Studies are prone to bias just like Gun Control Studies. Where I live in California, the lead bullet issue first involved the "endangered" California Condor which lives in an area about the size of maybe Rhode Island. Remember, California is anti-gun. And so, California expanded this the lead bullet ban with the same argument. I remember reading about it in the news. Then, human health issues were mentioned too so that in the SF Bay Area, ranges were closed because lead was now toxic. These are ranges that have existed for decade. Now, I have to drive 1-1/2 hours just to reach an outdoor range. And, recently, CA tried to ban lead bullets at even shooting ranges. See where this is going in regards to the shooting sports? I personally don't think lead is as toxic as it's made out to be. Just don't chew it, ingest it, and stay out of the way of the fumes. Remember the time most of us were in science class as kids and mercury was passed out and we were allowed to play with it in our hands. Some kids even rubbed it enough so it disappeared! In his hands! Now mercury is waaay more toxic, yes? But, we're alive. There are more toxic sources that can be addressed like cell phones. An experiment already proved that cell phone radio waves can stunt the growth of plants.
 
I believe that DDT was identified as the leading culprit in bald eagle population declines. It led to thinning of the egg shells so that many nests failed to produce eaglets.
After the banning of DDT, eagle populations started to climb and there is a healthy population of them now.

The lady probably was repeating HSUS propaganda.
If I recall, that study was considered BS because they also fed the eagles less calcium, which can also lead to thinner eggshells.
 
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