So when they suggested that lead in paint was making our children retards, was that an effort to ban painters?

Come on folks, quit jerking your knees at every perceived assault and take a closer look at the purpose of this research. It's not about banning hunting or indicting hunters. There's not even a hint of that suggestion in this piece. It's simply further evidence that maybe we should be taking a closer look at the food we're providing to our families.

Personally, I'm pretty unconcerned about the lead levels in the wild game I eat. I've been eating game meat my whole life... a good part of which occurred before the lead shot ban for waterfowl, and way before the CA lead ammo ban. But, in light of the research so far, I do think it's worth being a little cautious if we're feeding this stuff to small children or pregnant women.

Cautious doesn't mean throwing out all the lead ammo, by the way. It means trimming big game, plucking pellets out of birds and small game, and taking a little extra time to make sure we're keeping those little ones as healthy as possible.

Many of us have been demanding further research on the potential effects of lead ammo, because we need to know the facts. I believe the facts will help counter some of the anti-lead hype, but it's possible that those same facts may tell us a few things we really don't want to hear. At the very least, though, we're now empowered to make somewhat educated decisions.

I would like to see a study (Is there one out there?) that tests Pb levels in humans who eat gun-taken wild game often, every once in a while, and never. Choose whatever time interval is best, and separate types of game and they're frequency of consumption. I think that would be more pertinent,and I would give it far more consideration. I mean, I don't see why we are looking at the meat when it is our Pb absorption that counts. Looking in wild game for lead levels is only scratching the surface. This smoke and mirrors crap with "lead fragments" and unidentified wild game is garbage.

A person weighing 80 grams? I don't think so.

The 80 grams is probably a typo, but this whole project strikes me as researchers trying to build a case against lead ammo by trying to find the circumstances under which the lead concentration in game is the greatest and stretching their conditions for projecting total lead consumption to the extreme limits of credibility, if not beyond those limits.

So you remove the lead bullets and shot before you cook it!
I can certainly understand how cooking meat with lead metal in it could have a higher toxicity (I cast bullets for my muzzleloaders) and marinating meat containing lead in any acidic marinade would certainly raise the lead content of the meat. I can't see however why the hindquarter of a deer shot in the heart/lungs would have any lead contamination whatsoever.

The romans used to add lead to their wine to make it sweeter. I don't know what the effects on the romans were but they seemed to have built a rather profound empire.

As for lead toxicity, chances are hunters consume more lead from handling ammunition and its components (if said hunter is a reloader/avid shooter) than through meat toxicity resulting from the remaining lead shot in the animal. Think about all that mess that gets on your hands when loading and reloading magazines at the range.

Beekeeper,
And the liberal beat goes on...drive away hunters. Use any means you can because the end justifies the means.

Hogblog,
I say studies like this will be used to further ban lead. My conservative state of Idaho has issued surveys that propose the notion lead could be banned for upland game birds. I hunt upland game in Idaho, and there is very, very little pressure in most of the upland game areas...lead on the ground that will be picked up and consumed? I see the movement, and this just further enhances it. In California, the anti hunters made the case that an endangered critter might consume a wounded bird that had lead in it, and die of lead poisoning!! I grew up around Lake Erie when tons of PCB's were put into the lake, and DTT was sprayed on the grain fields around my home...I'm an old dude, still livin, and the lake is cleaned up, and not an ecological, environmental disaster for centuries to come like it was portrayed. Lead sinkers being banned in rivers that the few that end up on the bottom get covered up by silt in short order?
Eat lead...helps to keep your feet on the ground during wind storms!!

As long as we can "see through the smoke", make rational assessments of what we read and achieve consensus while doing so, let the scientists, backed by pro lead ban special intetests, ramble on. Our detractors say, "it's just anothet conspiracy theory," but we know better...it's not theory.

logan, I had a HS buddy that got a load of lead in his backside for stealing pumpkins once. and he never got poisoned. His ol man caused him a lot more harm.

So they cook and then remove the lead pellets from the meat. I've always removed the shot from the bird after cleaning it and before cooking it.

so these scientists are just now worrying about eating meat from animals that were taken w/ lead shot after man's been hunting w/ lead bullets since...well, when the gun was invented? Has anyone ever heard reports of lead poisoning from all those generations between us and then? Cuz if yall had, i'd love to hear about em

I don't buy into this for one minute. It sounds like more junk science to prop-up some political agenda. If we were to find out whose funding the research and what their political agenda is I'm sure we would find that the results co-inside with their already preconceived notions.