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Lead bullets under fire

Lead Bullets Under Fire

CHRIS MERRILL
Star-Tribune
Environment Reporter
November 7, 2008 12:00 AM


LANDER - People in Wyoming and North Dakota received mixed messages this week about eating animals killed with lead bullets.

North Dakota health officials recommended on Thursday that pregnant women and young children avoid eating meat from wild game that was shot with lead ammunition.

But an official with the Wyoming Department of Health said the Cowboy State will not be issuing the same warning to its residents, because state epidemiologists believe the effects are "very unlikely to be clinically significant."

The same afternoon, an advocacy group for the firearms industry called the North Dakota alert "scientifically unfounded rhetoric."

The North Dakota recommendation is based on a federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study, released Wednesday, that examined the blood lead levels in more than 700 state residents.

Those who ate wild game killed with lead bullets seemed statistically to have higher lead levels than those who ate little or no wild game.

The elevated levels were not considered dangerous, but North Dakota says pregnant women and children younger than 6 should avoid eating venison harvested with lead bullets.

Lead poisoning can cause learning problems and convulsions, and in severe cases can lead to brain damage and death.

The CDC study is the first to connect lead traces in game with higher lead levels in the blood of game eaters, said Dr. Stephen Pickard, a CDC epidemiologist who works with the state health department.

A separate study by Minnesota's Department of Natural Resources previously found that fragments from lead bullets spread as far as 18 inches from the wound.

"Nobody was in trouble from the lead levels," Pickard said. However, "the effect was small but large enough to be a concern," he said.

Pickard said the study found "the more recent the consumption of wild game harvested with lead bullets, the higher the level of lead in the blood."

The vast majority hunters in the United States use lead ammo.

But Dr. Tracy Murphy, the state epidemiologist with the Wyoming Department of Health, said he's reviewed the study, and Wyoming will not be issuing a similar warning about lead ammo to Cowboy State residents.

"From looking at the study, the increase that they showed is very small and very unlikely to be clinically significant," Murphy said. "Now that doesn't mean that somebody's eating habits couldn't make it clinically significant, but in this study it doesn't appear to be."

Pregnant women and parents with small children should be aware of the possibility that eating hunter-killed meat could cause a small increase in blood lead levels, he said. So, if other factors in their lives are elevating lead levels as well, it might then be "cause for concern," Murphy said.

For people seeking guidance on this issue, Murphy said: "I don't see anything in this study that would lead us to make any concrete recommendations against eating it."

The Wyoming Department of Health had several epidemiologists examine the CDC report, and so far they all concur on this, he said.

"It's possible more information may come out that will show a more significant problem; that certainly is a possibility, and we'll keep monitoring it," Murphy said.

A scare tactic?

The National Shooting Sports Foundation, which advocates for the firearms and ammunition industries, issued a statement Thursday in response to the North Dakota announcement.

The statement argued that the CDC study shows "no evidence that lead or 'traditional' ammunition pose any health risk to those who consume game-harvested meat."

The statement continued: "The CDC report on human lead levels of hunters in North Dakota has confirmed what hunters throughout the world have known for hundreds of years, that traditional ammunition poses no health risk to people, and that the call to ban lead ammunition was nothing more than a scare tactic being pushed by anti-hunting groups."

The Foundation noted the average lead level of the hunters tested in the study was lower than that of the average American.

When asked if that claim is true, Dr. Murphy said it was the case.

The lead levels of children under 6 in the study were an average of just 0.88, the Foundation added, which is less than half the national average: "Children over 6 had even lower lead levels. The CDC's level of concern for lead in children is 10."

Murphy said these claims are also true, for the most part.

"There was good evidence that the pediatric levels were not particularly alarming," Murphy said. "As for that last part, there's kind of a gray area about lead levels in children. The so-called action level is officially 10, but there is plenty of evidence that children can have some impaired neurological development at levels less than 10, so you kind of have to look at the individual. You don't want to say that everything is fine unless it's 10."

The Peregrine Fund, a conservation organization that advocates for birds of prey, touted the results of this CDC study as further proof hunters should switch to copper bullets.

The Peregrine Fund has worked to convince hunters to stop using lead bullets since it was discovered that endangered California Condors have died from lead poisoning after ingesting carcasses and "gut piles" from hunter-killed game animals.

Rick Watson, vice president of the Peregrine Fund, said in a media release on Wednesday: "When the extent of the lead problem for condors became clear, we began to wonder if people who eat venison shot with lead bullets might also be exposed to the toxic heavy metal. We are not anti-hunting. Our agenda is solely to restore California Condors to the wild where they may be enjoyed by future generations."

In North Dakota, the health department ordered food pantries to throw out donated venison this week. Some groups that organize venison donations have called such actions premature and unsupported by science.

For his part, Murphy said the Wyoming Department of Health would like people to be aware that handling lead and being exposed to lead can cause elevated levels. Hunters and shooters should be careful when reloading lead bullets, he said, and they should try to avoid ingesting any lead.

"Probably the biggest risk would be from reloading," he said. "You can get lead residue on your hands, so don't eat or smoke until you wash the residue off."

And when handling lead ammo, people should try not to create dust that they inhale, he said.

Contact environment reporter Chris Merrill at [phone] or [e-mail]

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