meat is murder

A new study shows risks to humans of lead poisoning from eating animals shot with lead bullets. The meatismurder admin team also believe that being shot with lead bullets isn’t too good for the individuals being shot either.

People who eat animals killed with lead bullets need to be concerned about lead poisoning, according to a conservation organization working to convince game hunters to switch to copper ammunition.class=”storydetail”>

Opponents, however, argue that the group’s agenda — to get the lead out of commercial ammo — rather than hard science, is the driving force behind the results of a recent study. Participating scientists say it provides proof that lead-based ammunition poses health risks not only for animals, but for people.

The Peregrine Fund, a Boise, Idaho-based conservation group that works to protect birds of prey, conducted the study in concert with scientists from Washington State University’s College of Veterinary Medicine, in which researchers examined professionally processed meat from hunter-killed deer in Wyoming.

Eighty percent of the deer killed by high-velocity lead-based ammunition produced at least some meat with metal fragments or metal “dust” in it, and 92 percent of the metal found was lead, according to the leaders of the project who presented their findings Tuesday at a conference in Boise. Separately, the North Dakota Health Department and the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are planning to test nearly 700 people who eat wild game killed with lead bullets, to determine if there are any health risks.

The suggestion that lead bullets could make venison unsafe for humans has prompted outrage from pro-hunting groups such as Safari Club International of Somerset, N.J., and the Connecticut-based National Shooting Sports Foundation, a firearms industry group, after North Dakota and Minnesota in March and April instructed food banks there to pull hunter-donated venison from their shelves.

“This is one more piece of evidence that points to lead bullets as a source of contamination in our environment,” Rick Watson, vice president of the Peregrine Fund, said in a statement ahead of a presentation of the study.

The study released Tuesday comes after a Peregrine Fund board member, Dr. William Cornatzer, previously did CT scans of about 100 packets of venison that had been donated to food banks by hunters. He found 60 percent had multiple lead fragments.

Lawrence Keane, a National Shooting Sports Foundation spokesman, said he hasn’t seen the latest study. But he said initial evidence supplied by Cornatzer, a dermatologist and professor at the University of North Dakota medical school, didn’t justify a policy change or destruction of venison. Groups, including Safari Club, gave nearly 1 million pounds of venison in 2007 to food banks as part of their humanitarian efforts.

“The Peregrine Fund is an advocacy group and has an agenda,” Keane said. “We have serious questions with the so-called science by the dermatologist. It’s my understanding there’s not a single reported case that the CDC is aware of, of anyone having elevated blood lead levels from eating game harvested with lead ammunition.”

Lead poisoning has been linked to learning disabilities, behavioral problems and, at very high levels, seizures, coma and death. There is no safe level of lead in blood.

Remainder of story at Jackson Hole Star Tribune

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