And now, to paraphrase Paul Harvey, for the REST of the story....
It turns out that Dr. Cornatzer is a dermatologist, not an epidemiologist. Plus, however coincidentally, he is on the board of The Peregrine Fund, an Idaho-based leading activist group that is working hard to ban use of lead projectiles for hunting. They've been very successful in California and their ever-vigilant representatives never fail to send me a pat on the back whenever I write about lead contamination in waterfowl, etc.
What's more is that Dr. Cornatzer is a presenter at the group's annual conference in May entitled "Ingestion of Spent Lead Ammunition: Implications for Wildlife and Humans" (
www.peregrinefund.org/Lead_conference/).
Is it possible that Dr. Cornatzer's study was designed to instill panic and/or outrage over home-freezer contamination leading up to the conference?
The source of the health scare is at the very least suspect. Iowa has since backed off its ban on hunter-donated venison, after running a few tests of its own.
Even if the report is a false alarm -- and it certainly looks and smells like it from here -- consider legislative impact and potential fodder for anti-hunters: there are bills already introduced to expand scope of "cop-killer bans" to include rifle ammo, projectiles with plastic or ceramic cores ("green" ammo for ranges), and solid coppers (Barnes X, etc).
Get rid of those AND the leaded variety and what's left to hunt with?