Lead in Venison

[Scorch]

The last report I read on this said that Iowa, Minnesota, and one other state has done extensive testing of packaged venison from their venison distribution programs, and found less than 1% of packages had detectable amounts of lead (talking parts per trillion here), and only 2 packages out of all the meat tested had levels of 1ppm (parts per million) of lead. South Dakota had already ordered the venison in their program to be destroyed, and the article did not say whether or not it had been destroyed before testing.

The doctor (a dermatologist) who published the South Dakota study has funding from the Peregrine Fund (the same folks who backed the CA lead bullet ban), and is a member of the board of that organization. There is some attempt to discredit the author and the publisher of the report, but the question still remains as to whether or not there is a health hazard in eating meat that may have bullet fragments in it.

I have no problem finding bullets and shot when I butcher my own, but whether or not a game processing facility would be as careful is a question that needs to be asked. I am sure we will hear a lot about this in the coming months.

Likely, this meat was not subject to FDA inspection.

Meat is never inspected by the FDA. The Meat and Poultry Inspection Act appoints the US Department of Agriculture (or appointees) as the inspecting authority. Some states have their own inspection laws.

 

[Pahoo]

Sadly the pendulum swings to another extreme. I use to repair and certify testing equipment and saw instruments that could find just about anything wrong with what was being tested. You certainly have to question some folk's agenda. I'll bet if you tried hard enough and had the proper test equipment, you could find lead in processed poltry, beef, pork and eggs. Problem is that once you bring this stuff out, you are accountable and responsible to do somethng about it. Next, they will perform Gas Chromatograph tests on all gun powder residue. Really hard to fight "Saftey or Love". How far do you go in protecting folks when we were all born with no guarantees. So sad !!


Be Safe !!!

 

[JP Sarte]

A good friend of mine Harry Morgan once said it best, "Horse Hockey"

JP

 

[Rembrandt]

There is some evidence that shows an increase of fragmented metals in game from states that allowed high power rifle. Speculation is high power bullets fragmented more than the shotgun slugs used in some states.




http://www.iowadnr.com/news/08apr/lead.html

Donated Venison Cleared for Distribution to Needy
Posted: April 1, 2008

DES MOINES — Food pantries in Iowa have been given approval to resume serving deer venison to the needy after sampling of the ground meat for lead indicated only trace amounts.

A total of 10 samples of ground venison from a food pantry were tested by the University of Iowa Hygienic Laboratory over the weekend. All 10 samples had less than 1 part per million of lead, eight had no detectable amounts and two had only trace amounts.

Distribution of venison donated to the food pantries by hunters was temporarily halted last week until the ground meat could be sampled for lead. More than 25,000 deer have been donated to hunger programs through the Department of Natural Resources (DNR)-administered HUSH (Help Us Stop Hunger) program in the last five years representing more than 4 million meal servings. HUSH is a cooperative effort among deer hunters, the Food Bank of Iowa, meat lockers and the Iowa DNR. The two main goals of HUSH include reducing the deer population while providing high-quality red meat to the needy in Iowa.

"Based on the samples that were analyzed and the extensive data currently available through blood testing of Iowans by our department, no additional tests of the venison are necessary," said Ken Sharp, director of the environmental health division of the Iowa Department of Public Health (IDPH).

“When we look at the results of this testing and the blood data that has been collected over the years, the venison provided through the HUSH program presents no recognized risk for lead exposure,” Sharp added.

Lead poisoning can cause significant health problems for young children and pregnant women. Lead-based paint is the leading cause of lead exposure for children. Since 1992, more than 500,000 Iowa children and more than 25,000 Iowa adults have been tested for lead poisoning. None of the cases of lead poisoning identified from this testing resulted from ingestion of venison, according to the IDPH.

Based on these results and Food and Drug Administration (FDA) established guidelines for daily lead intake, the IDPH states that people can safely consume the following amount of ground venison:

* Children under the age of 6 years: 2 four-ounce servings per week
* Pregnant women: 1 four-ounce serving per day
* All other adults: 3 four-ounce servings per day

If parents are concerned about their children’s exposure to lead in venison, they should ask their physician to test their children for lead poisoning, according to the IDPH.

Hunters with ground venison in their own freezers should consider the daily intake recommendations made by the IDPH based on the FDA established guidelines. How the meat was processed and what care was taken to clean the animal when it was harvested should be considered on other cuts of venison to determine the likelihood of lead being present.

Testing of the HUSH venison was prompted when North Dakota issued a press release last Wednesday urging food pantries across that state to not distribute or use donated ground venison through its hunter donation program after 53 of 95 packages detected metals through x-ray testing.

“This is a question we have never encountered before. We wanted to do the sampling so that we would have confidence that the venison is safe,” said Ross Harrison, coordinator of the HUSH program for DNR.

Harrison said he is pleased that distribution of the venison can now continue.

“One of Iowa’s most valuable natural resources is its deer herd. The HUSH program has been a perfect match of being able to utilize this resource in a positive way to help some of our most needy citizens,” said Harrison.

“This testing confirms what we have believed all along that donated venison can be a valuable contribution to the health of needy Iowans,” Harrison said.

For more information, contact Kevin Baskins at 515-249-2814.

 

[MeekAndMild]

This is simply not true. Lead is well absorbed when taken orally. Kids easily get encephalopathy from eating metallic lead. I've seen kids eat pieces lead and get profoundly toxic. It only takes a few hundred micrograms (which isn't a much lead) for a kid to get toxic and a few milligrams for and adult.

I'd agree for lead dust but not fragments... How did you rule out other sources of exposure?

I've seen nothing to contradict the idea that pediatric risk of lead dust, lead vapor and soluable lead salts exposure is orders of magnitude higher than that of fresh unoxidized solid fragments. The shooter's risk of exposure to lead dust and vapor (especially on indoor ranges using old style primers) is orders of magnitude higher than that found in eating an occasional fragment.

I'd challenge you to produce references regarding studies of ingested fragment exposure, controlled for the massive amount of lead dust, lead vapor and soluble lead exposure common to Western civilization.

General information for the rest of the readers:
http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/543500_print
http://www.emedicine.com/emerg/TOPIC293.HTM
http://www.emedicine.com/med/TOPIC1269.HTM
http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/414307_print
http://www.epa.gov/history/topics/perspect/lead.htm
http://www.haz-map.com/leadfact.htm

Rembrandt, public road rights of way are heavily contaminated by soluble lead residua from decades of gasoline use. Can you say that the lead found in deer carcasses is not related to grazing in contaminated areas?

 

[Toxdoc]

http://tinyurl.com/54pu4w
http://archpedi.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/full/152/5/485
http://tinyurl.com/6bhzjt
http://tinyurl.com/6gdyez

These are four case reports from the literature. Our toxicology group has treated two others with similar presentation. One of ours was from a lead musket ball and the other was from fishing sinkers.

As far a Toxicology research goes, case reports are as good as it is going to get. There are not going to be randomized trials or even case control studies. Given the few number of kids with lead levels in this range, the rapidly rising lead levels, that they had lead ingestions and the biologic plausibility, it is extremely difficult and somewhat logic defying to try to argue that these kids had their exposure from a completely different source.

As for "the occasional fragment" it only takes a few hundred milligrams for a child to become encephalopathic from lead poisoning. It takes fractions of that to cause demonstrable decreases in IQ.

The vast majority of lead poisoning comes from lead paint due to the abundance. Ingestion of elemental lead, however, is not benign.

 

[Toxdoc]

Rembrandt, public road rights of way are heavily contaminated by soluble lead residua from decades of gasoline use. Can you say that the lead found in deer carcasses is not related to grazing in contaminated areas?

If the lead is metallic, it isn't from gasoline. Also, as the lead from grazing would be diffusely taken up, the meat would not show metallic shadows on xray.

 

[MeekAndMild]

OK, you found four case studies, no controlled studies, no animal studies. Taking the references in order:

The first link did not show anything except the title. Perhaps you have the article text?

The second link mentioned:

The asymptomatic child had presented at a community emergency department because of ingestion of a nail. Evaluation included x-ray films that incidentally revealed multiple metallic foreign bodies resembling fishing sinkers....Patient history was significant for pica, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and learning disability...Neurological and abdominal examination results...were normal...

Pica means he has a known history of eating foreign objects. How many over what time span? Fishing sinkers in all likelihood were contaminated with lead salts unlike uncorroded bullet fragments. He had no symptoms and his neurological exam was normal.

The third one mentioned:

Lead dissolves poorly in physiological solutions with the exception of the acid environment of the stomach.

The last one stated in part:

healthy girl was found eating the pellets from an ankle weight... An abdominal X-ray showed thousands of small, round, metallic density objects in the stomach...CONCLUSION: Acute elevations of blood lead concentrations may occur rapidly after ingestion of multiple small elemental lead objects.

Thousands of pellets? If the ankle weight was in bad enough repair for her to open are you ruling out the possibility that these thousands of pellets might have been corroded? They would not have been pure elemental lead if they had lead oxide or lead salts on their surfaces.

The last article also stated

Ingestion of elemental lead foreign bodies is felt to have a low risk of clinically significant lead absorption unless gastrointestinal pathology and/or prolonged transit time are present.

Which seems reasonable to me.

 

[Toxdoc]

There aren't going to be any controlled trials or animal studies designed to show that eating metallic lead is harmless. I don't think there are any doctors who are familiar with lead intoxication that think this is an open question. Too few people eat metallic lead to perform any sort of controlled trial. Animals are expensive and most consider this to be a non-question. Thus, no one would spend money on trying to prove it and certainly no IRB/IUCAC committee which would approve such a study.

I gave you 4 case reports. They took less than 5 minutes to find. You don't like that results and are trying to explain away what is some pretty clear causation. Latching on the possibility that there was corrosion is somewhat disingenuous. The acid milieu of the stomach can dissolve lead to some degree, which is then taken up just like iron.

Here is a fun one: http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pubmed&pubmedid=15811841

In more familiar units, she had a lead level of 55 mcg/dL. This is a level which has been demonstrated to show significant cognitive impairment in children and would generally necessitate chelation. There are quite a few reports if you spend any time on pubmed.

As for

Ingestion of elemental lead foreign bodies is felt to have a low risk of clinically significant lead absorption unless gastrointestinal pathology and/or prolonged transit time are present.

That was their background. They present the case report to show that statement in untrue. The child required inpatient chelation and had a peak level of 79 mcg/dL. That is very "clinically significant" by any measure. The statement might sound reasonable to you, but the authors of that case report would strongly disagree.

Again, the point is that eating metallic lead isn't safe and there is risk associated with it. Especially if the meat is going to be consumed by children, efforts need to be made to be careful when processing the meat to remove areas which may be contaminated with bullet fragments.

 

[MeekAndMild]

I'd agree with your opinion that removing fragments from meat is a good idea but I find it laughable that you're trying to pin your thesis with such single case reports, even review articles which list a dozen single cases. Single case reports are normally the sort of 'gee whiz' filler that makes for exciting reading but their oddity is exactly what makes them publishable. Review articles are more credible but still not adequate.

The rest of it goes into circles unless you can see your way to acknowledge how many orders of magnitude greater is the proven risk of the other commonly seen forms of lead intake than this form which seems to be limited to isolated incidents. Or if you fail to recall that my initial statement and follow up statements have been regarding elemental lead and your case reports seem to ignore the distinction between it and accompanying lead salts. The lead in a single sinker could probably kill a whole herd of pigs if it is converted to soluble salts but not if its swallowed whole.

This starts to take on the tone of discussions one sees with biologists in the southwest when they discuss lead levels found in birds killed in power line collisions so I think I'll end my part of it. Have a nice day.

 

[Tuckahoe]

Bow hunting is lead free and great exercise.

 

[Yithian]

Since most hunters I know compeltely remove bloodshot meat, the risk is nil... same as this thread.
I can see this topic comming up as a future method of controling firearms.
An even more restrictive ammo.
And, I think it is exactly Tox's goal here.