Lead Poisoning....this is not good news

[Cosmoline]

Do a search of " MISO AND HEAVY METALS". I seems miso, an oriental food can remove some heavy metals like lead , mercury and strontium 90. It seems like a most pleasant way to medicate yourself, by eating healthfood type foods. May be a little less drastic than some methods.

Miso is just Japanese soup. It's not magical, though there are some who follow the Macrobiotic movement/religion and hold that miso and other Japanese foods will cure all your problems. I'm sure eating miso in the morning is better than eggs and bacon--but it's not a magical means of removing anything other than perhaps extra pounds.

 

[slopemeno]

Krazy Kramer-
I was a service manager for C&D Batteries. When you say Bags, are you talking about powded lead for the pasting process?

One of my competitors had an employee who washed his work clothes at home with his babys clothing. Later, the kid turns up with developemental difficulties, which got OSHA (rightly, in this case) involved. Turns out the kids clothing was contaminated and it was picking up lead from its clothes.
Dont miss that part of the business, but it was fun otherwise.

 

[hso]

I hadn't thought about this. ... I guess it will be the same for any fine dust, including lead.

Yup, and if you've got lead dust on your hands you'll directly transfer it to the cigs as you handle them and then suck that into your lungs.

 

[hso]

Is there such a thing as non-lead bullets or shotgun shells?

Yes

Look for "green" ammunition. Many states have banned lead shot for water fowling and bismuth or steel shot have replaced it.

 

[lance22]

High Lead - Been There, Done That

My brother and I used to run IPSC matches at an indoor range. His lead was over 40 and mine in the mid 20's. Most of it was due, we think, from setting up and taking down for the matches as this required us to pick stuff off the floor, touch the floor, take things off the floor ... YOU DO NOT WANT TO EVER TOUCH THE FLOOR AT AN INDOOR RANGE. Several others who frequented our matches got high lead, as well as MOST of those who did most of the work.

 

[RonC]

It was mentioned in this thread that adults pass out 95% of the ingested lead. That is valid. Young children retain 95%. Inhaled lead moves very quickly from the bronchioles in the lungs and into the blood stream and can cause lead poisoning that wouldn't be as obvious in the slower uptake in the digestive tract.
Ron

My citation of the 95% for children's retention of lead is incorrect. Children retain about 60%, still much higher than adults.
Sorry for the error.
Ron

 

[roo_ster]

Reminder to self: do not tarry at indoor ranges...and pat self on back for shelling out $155 for membership at an outdoor range.

 

[blackguns]

I am a safety and heath professional ( I do environmental too) at a large corporation and I am impressed by the mostly accurate information that was presented in this thread.

Hygiene around lead is the single most important factor. No eating, drinking, or making excessive dust when dealing with lead substances.

Smoking is a whole 'nother issues You would be amazed what drawing airborne chemiclas through a burning tobacco stick will create on the other end. Yeah, lead or other metal fumes get drawn in but are reacted at high temperatre and can create all types of funky organic and inorganic combinations.

Those who cast bullets: you have the highest risk level. Step one; DEVELOP GOOD HYGIENE PRACTICES

Step two: VENTILATE!

Dilution is the solution to polution, at least when it comes to people safety.

 

[RonC]

Smoking is a whole 'nother issues You would be amazed what drawing airborne chemiclas through a burning tobacco stick will create on the other end. Yeah, lead or other metal fumes get drawn in but are reacted at high temperatre and can create all types of funky organic and inorganic combinations.

Smoking throws a wrench into the interpretation of the bullet, primer link to lead in our bodies. Tobacco was one of the last crops in which lead arsenate was permitted as a pesticide. It only was about a decade ago that it was banned. If you had been smoking at that time, you had another major input of lead - cigarettes. Cigarette smokers back then high the highest loads of lead of anyone in the U.S. population. If you smoked and handled ammo and shot in poorly ventilated ranges, then it is not surprising to find high blood levels.

There are plenty of ways to get lead in a human.
Romans sweetened wine with lead salts (the decline of the Roman empire?). The Williamsburg, VA settlers distilled their rum using lead coils. Analysis of their bones still show abnormally high lead levels. The old Soviet Union had industry concentrated in certain cities in which resident's health was sacrificed to economic development. As a result, kids in some cities in Poland had lead levels 10 times that considered beginning lead poisoning and 80% of the population had asthma.

Maybe, compared to the above, our exposure isn't all that bad.

Ron

 

[Versifier]

Comments about casting and hygeine

By far, the worst source of lead contamination is indoor ranges with poor ventilation. Burning powder reacts with the bases of bullets and the common primers contain lead styphanate which gets into the air on ignition. This is not as much of a concern on an outside range, but too much exposure is still possible on a windless day.
The tempertures involved in casting are not high enough to cause any vaporization of lead. For casters, breathing it is not the issue, and a respirator, while it may indeed do some good keeping the other particulates from the burning flux out of our lungs, that is generally only a problem when smelting and mixing alloys, and there is no lead vapor involved. (If there were, a particulate filter wouldn't stop it anyway.) The main problem comes with not washing your hands after handling lead and lead alloys when casting or loading. Elemental lead is not absorbed through the skin. If it enters your digestive system, however, then you can have problems. It is oxidized by the acid in your stomach, and lead oxide is nasty stuff. (The latex gloves are a really good idea, BTW.) Eating, drinking, and/or smoking while casting or loading is potentially the biggest problem after range lead. Lead on the outside of a cigarette is burned with the tobacco as you inhale, and that is hot enough to vaporize it. Any lead on your hands contaminates any food you pick up and put in your mouth, even tossing a few ice cubes in your glass is not a safe practice.
It may surprise you that very few casters when tested have elevated lead levels. Ours is a fairly technical hobby, and the sort of people who are drawn to it tend to be the intelligent, curious sort, and are usually well aware of the health concerns surrounding it. This is not to say that regular reminders aren't a good idea, they are. We all need to be aware, and to keep
washing our hands immediately whenever we take a break!

 

[Shalako]

I heard on a science radio program that people that chew their fingernails have high lead levels. It stated that lead accumulates in the fingernails and people that chew their nails ingest more lead.

It did not state the relative impact to one's lead score though.

 

[Jbar4Ranch]

34-35 is elevated, but not critical. I worked at an ASARCO lead smelter for 23 years, and very, very seldom was my blood lead below 30. Chelation has proven to be a risky therapy with lead because lead has a very sharp granular molecular structure and does a lot of microscopic slicing and dicing on its way out.

 

[hso]

I heard on a science radio program that people that chew their fingernails have high lead levels. It stated that lead accumulates in the fingernails and people that chew their nails ingest more lead.

It did not state the relative impact to one's lead score though.

Well, no. Think about that for a moment. The lead "accumated" in the fingernails has to come from the body and chewing the nail would only return it to the body. OTOH, nail chewers will pick up a lot of lead if they don't wash well after getting lead on their hands and that includes scrubbing under the nails.

 

[Jbar4Ranch]

Once it leaves the blood stream, lead never leaves the body, it migrates from the blood mostly to the long, heavy bones, but also ends up in smaller bones and finger/toe nails. A blood lead sample measures the amount of lead in the blood, not in the bones or nails, hence if a person ingested body parts, such as fingernails, where the lead has already been deposited from the blood, it starts the cycle all over again and could very well cause increases in the blood lead level.
I think your thinking is more correct though, that nail biters ingest lead from the crud deposited on and under their nails, rather than from inside them.

 

[CypherNinja]

Is there such a thing as non-lead bullets or shotgun shells?

Yes, I've seen 99.9% Copper bullets for handguns as well as the usual steel shot for scatterguns.

 

[tellner]

There's steel, bismuth and tungsten shot for scatterguns. And, of course, the Remington Solid Copper Slug (when it absolutely, positively has to be de-livered, dis-armed, dis-embowled and de-spined).

For handguns I like to use Cleanfire ammunition. In fact, the local range PSTC requires it. No lead or antimony in the primer, and the bullets are completely copper-clad including the base. They've done a lot of airborne and wipe tests and found no detectable lead or any of a couple other bad actors. A bit expensive, but it's worth it. I'd hate to get hurt worse in training than I'm likely to be hurt out in the real world.

 

[Shrinkmd]

How about outdoor ranges?

I shoot outdoors only. How worried should I be about bringing home dust on my clothes, hair, etc? I tried searching the internet, and most of the things I could find about problems were related to indoor ranges. Outdoor range info dealt primarily with the environment/toxic cleanup issues, but not much about the exposure risk for people shooting there.

I am concerned due to little ones at home, and the last thing I would want to have happen is to contaminate the house or my car. I don't reload (although I would like to someday), I wear plastic gloves when I clean, I wash hands immediately after even touching any firearms or ammo, and I try to change my clothes and shower as soon as I get home from the range.

How much concern is there about washing clothing in a seperate load to avoid contamination children's clothing? I don't want to get super paranoid about this, but lead and developing nervous systems really don't mix.

Just another "daddy worry" to add to the list I guess.

 

[Cosmoline]

What sort of mask could you wear to filter out lead styphanates? I try to avoid inhaling smoke, but depending on the wind sometimes it's impossible to avoid even at an outdoor range.

 

[Kramer Krazy]

Krazy Kramer-
I was a service manager for C&D Batteries. When you say Bags, are you talking about powded lead for the pasting process?

Sorry, I missed this post a while back......Yes, from the pasting process, but also in several other areas.....

The bags that I am refering to are the ones inside of the baghouses. The baghouses that we had were as large as a 20'x40' room with 8' ceilings. Inside of them, you had hundreds of cloth bags that filtered out the lead dust in the air. If you had a leaky bag, you would get contamination on the "clean" side. With the levels of lead that was in the air, to replace faulty bags, you were required to wear SCBA breathing apparatus, because regular half-face and full-face respirators did not supply enough protection at those concentrations.

The lead that got into these baghouses were typically from the lead dust ("red-lead" was the worst due to it's smaller size) that is used to make the paste for the internal plates. Not only was the dust present in the "pasting" operation, where they mixed the paste and applied it to the cast plates, but you could find it in almost every process of the manufacturing process of a lead-acid battery. Wire-brushing the excess paste off of the plates was a huge contributor in one area when I worked on the production line. This was a 4" wide wire brush on a bench grinder used to knock off excess paste from the edges of the plates. The tables, overheard ceiling, and work area below were all designed to use the vacuum of the baghouse systems top suck the lead dust away. Some areas even had water inside of them, such as the wet-scrubbers, to "scrub" the lead out of the air.

Quite often, despite wearing proper PPE, it was personal hygiene and bad work habits when it came to lead that was the reason for elevated lead levels....such as constantly pulling down your respirator with contaminated gloves, so you can talk to your buddy. This one guy was really bad for it. Having a leather glove coated in lead paste and dust just two inches under his nose while talking/breathing.

 

[distra]

Shrinkmd, I too worry about bringing home nasty things to the little one. What I do is test frequently in the house, floors, car steering wheels, shoes, etc. any place my son may come in contact with directly or indirectly. I have also tested my coat after shooting and found no contamination. The test kits are cheap and easy to use. I also shoot FMJ only and have started to get clean range rounds. At the range, I use D-lead wipes to clean my hands after loading mags and use a mag loader to try to eleviate grinding what lead exists on the outside of the rounds into my thumb. I have tested the outside of FMJ rounds and there IS a little lead on the round. Not much, but you should be aware of it. One other thing, I take my shoes off ASAP when I get home, just to make sure. I've tested my shoes and the floor. Not problem here. Sad thing is though, I tested my wife's favorite pottery glass and guess what...there were significant amounts of lead present I then tested other items just to make sure and we have put those pottery glasses, bowls and plates away for a while. I also tested several plastic items my son likes to play with just in case. All tested negative.

 

[JMusic]

Johnathan your right it is micrograms per deciliter. There is a tablet you can get by perscription. Succimer is the name of the compound. others above have explaned how it works. They are expensive.
Jim

 

[hso]

If you want to make sure that you minimize the potential for taking lead into the car you can do a few simple inexpensive things.

Shoot in a light colored lightweight long sleve shirt an take it off and wash up when you leave the firing line.

Wipe you shoes off with a wet wipe or change shoes before getting in the car.

Make sure the clothing/shoes you take off go into a bag only used to carry them or use a small garbage bag or double groucery bag you can throw away.

Wipe or wash your face.

Wash the shooting shirt and wipe down the shoes or wash them when you get home. Don't put anything else in the washing machine. Use cold and a full tub instead of conservine detergent and water. Run the machine another full cycle when you take your shooting clothing out so that it completely rinses the interior.

I shoot at home. A lot. Every weekend almost and sometimes during the week when I get home before 6. I clean the guns at home. My blood lead level was 4 micrograms/deciliter last week.

 

[Khornet]

Chelation quackery

Chelation is indeed effective for metal toxicity. But anyone who claims to be able to treat vascular disease, or indeed any disease other than metal toxicity is a quack.

And chelation for vascular disease can have serious side-effects: I've treated them.

 

[K-Romulus]

Some info for your guys re:"take out"

As a new dad (tyke just turned one), I am one of the more extreme people here in that I only shoot non-toxic rounds (.308, .223, .40 - bullet AND primer), either at a wind-tunnel indoor range or a large outdoor range, use coveralls on either type of range, and my range boots never get worn beyond the parking lot next to my car and on the range itself.

NIOSH (CDC National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health) has done several studies on range use and lead poisoning among police ranges. Here is a link to the 1996 study of the FBI Academy in Quantico, where the investigators found serious take-home lead levels in the FBI dorms. The FBI trainees were shooting 12 gauge slugs and (FMJ?) 9mm, but it isn't clear if the take-home lead came from the outdoor range, indoor range, or was there for years:

http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/hhe/reports/pdfs/1991-0346-2572.pdf

The same study showed that outdoor ranges had the potential for high lead exposure (depending on the type of rounds, wind, etc.). . .

 

[Tinker]

esheato,

By chance, was your lead test done by a finger prick blood sample? Also, how many tests have you had?

The reason I ask is because of something that happened to my daughter when she was three years old. I took her for a regular check-up with the pediatrician one day. Everything went OK. A few hours after the visit the doctor calls us back, frantically asking us how our little girl is feeling and requesting we bring her back to the hospital. The doc said my daughter had "the highest lead level that they'd ever seen". As we spoke on the phone my daughter was jumping on the bed, laughing. A re-test showed normal.

That was a relief, but the doc couldn't figure out the high reading on the first test. Then I recalled that as I was preparing her car seat before the check-up my daughter asked "Wha's this, Daddy?". Her sharp little eyes had found a crusty old .22 LR bullet that was hidden in the truck's carpeting. I guess the lead oxide was on the finger that was sampled for the blood test.

If you'd been handling bullets before only one test, you might want another. With clean hands.