Take the lead out of ammo, society urges

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By law, we must take the lead out of paint, gasoline and numerous other products. Yet, it remains in lead ammunition, despite a recent study by the North Dakota Department of Health and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention revealing that "people who ate a lot of wild game tended to have higher lead levels than those who ate little or none."

The elevated lead levels in wild-game eaters are caused by lead shot and lead bullets.

A recent study in Minnesota showed that venison from deer killed with lead bullets contains lead fragments too small to see or feel, which can cause elevated lead levels in people who eat the meat. The researchers were surprised to find these fragments much more widely dispersed through the animals' flesh than anyone had thought possible.

The levels in wild-game eaters ranged as high as 9.82 micrograms of lead per deciliter of blood. Historically, a level of 10 micrograms per deciliter has been considered dangerous for adults.

However, there is a growing consensus in the medical research community that the precise safety threshold of lead is unknown, but is well below 10 micrograms. The threshold for children is known to be lower than for adults.

In the Old West, it was a grim joke to say that someone who had been shot had "a bad case of lead poisoning."

In the modern West, lead poisoning is no joke; it's a serious health threat. Lead is poison. In adults, it causes a variety of debilitating conditions, including high blood pressure, hearing loss, anemia and kidney disease.

If ingested by children or pregnant women, lead causes severe learning disabilities.

Animals who eat lead shot in soil or in the remains of animals shot by hunters experience at worst a painful, slow death and at best altered reproduction systems.

North Dakota is sufficiently alarmed by the findings of these two studies that three state agencies - the Departments of Health, Agriculture and Game and Fish - have jointly recommended that young children and pregnant women eat no venison from deer killed with lead bullets. They also advise that older children and adults take precautions against ingesting lead from game and that charitable food pantries exercise caution in accepting meat from animals killed with lead bullets.

The time lapse between ingesting lead and developing the symptoms of lead poisoning makes it easy for people to bury their heads in the sand and pretend there is no problem. But, it is now undeniable that lead bullets and lead shot are a threat to public health, animals and the environment.

There is no lack of high performance alternatives to lead ammunition. And, if hunters are not convinced by lead's damage to the habitat they purportedly want to conserve, then human health is one more reason to lay down the ammo that just keeps on killing.

It is time to do the responsible thing and ban lead bullets and lead shot.

- Andrew Page is the director of the Wildlife Abuse Campaign for The Humane Society of the United States and be contacted at WildlifeAbuse@hsus.org.