Lead in Venison

[Toxdoc]

http://tinyurl.com/54pu4w
http://archpedi.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/full/152/5/485
http://tinyurl.com/6bhzjt
http://tinyurl.com/6gdyez

These are four case reports from the literature. Our toxicology group has treated two others with similar presentation. One of ours was from a lead musket ball and the other was from fishing sinkers.

As far a Toxicology research goes, case reports are as good as it is going to get. There are not going to be randomized trials or even case control studies. Given the few number of kids with lead levels in this range, the rapidly rising lead levels, that they had lead ingestions and the biologic plausibility, it is extremely difficult and somewhat logic defying to try to argue that these kids had their exposure from a completely different source.

As for "the occasional fragment" it only takes a few hundred milligrams for a child to become encephalopathic from lead poisoning. It takes fractions of that to cause demonstrable decreases in IQ.

The vast majority of lead poisoning comes from lead paint due to the abundance. Ingestion of elemental lead, however, is not benign.

[Toxdoc]

Rembrandt, public road rights of way are heavily contaminated by soluble lead residua from decades of gasoline use. Can you say that the lead found in deer carcasses is not related to grazing in contaminated areas?

If the lead is metallic, it isn't from gasoline. Also, as the lead from grazing would be diffusely taken up, the meat would not show metallic shadows on xray.

[MeekAndMild]

OK, you found four case studies, no controlled studies, no animal studies. Taking the references in order:

The first link did not show anything except the title. Perhaps you have the article text?

The second link mentioned:

The asymptomatic child had presented at a community emergency department because of ingestion of a nail. Evaluation included x-ray films that incidentally revealed multiple metallic foreign bodies resembling fishing sinkers....Patient history was significant for pica, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and learning disability...Neurological and abdominal examination results...were normal...

Pica means he has a known history of eating foreign objects. How many over what time span? Fishing sinkers in all likelihood were contaminated with lead salts unlike uncorroded bullet fragments. He had no symptoms and his neurological exam was normal.

The third one mentioned:

Lead dissolves poorly in physiological solutions with the exception of the acid environment of the stomach.

The last one stated in part:

healthy girl was found eating the pellets from an ankle weight... An abdominal X-ray showed thousands of small, round, metallic density objects in the stomach...CONCLUSION: Acute elevations of blood lead concentrations may occur rapidly after ingestion of multiple small elemental lead objects.

Thousands of pellets? If the ankle weight was in bad enough repair for her to open are you ruling out the possibility that these thousands of pellets might have been corroded? They would not have been pure elemental lead if they had lead oxide or lead salts on their surfaces.

The last article also stated

Ingestion of elemental lead foreign bodies is felt to have a low risk of clinically significant lead absorption unless gastrointestinal pathology and/or prolonged transit time are present.

Which seems reasonable to me.

[Toxdoc]

There aren't going to be any controlled trials or animal studies designed to show that eating metallic lead is harmless. I don't think there are any doctors who are familiar with lead intoxication that think this is an open question. Too few people eat metallic lead to perform any sort of controlled trial. Animals are expensive and most consider this to be a non-question. Thus, no one would spend money on trying to prove it and certainly no IRB/IUCAC committee which would approve such a study.

I gave you 4 case reports. They took less than 5 minutes to find. You don't like that results and are trying to explain away what is some pretty clear causation. Latching on the possibility that there was corrosion is somewhat disingenuous. The acid milieu of the stomach can dissolve lead to some degree, which is then taken up just like iron.

Here is a fun one: http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/art...medid=15811841

In more familiar units, she had a lead level of 55 mcg/dL. This is a level which has been demonstrated to show significant cognitive impairment in children and would generally necessitate chelation. There are quite a few reports if you spend any time on pubmed.

As for

Ingestion of elemental lead foreign bodies is felt to have a low risk of clinically significant lead absorption unless gastrointestinal pathology and/or prolonged transit time are present.

That was their background. They present the case report to show that statement in untrue. The child required inpatient chelation and had a peak level of 79 mcg/dL. That is very "clinically significant" by any measure. The statement might sound reasonable to you, but the authors of that case report would strongly disagree.

Again, the point is that eating metallic lead isn't safe and there is risk associated with it. Especially if the meat is going to be consumed by children, efforts need to be made to be careful when processing the meat to remove areas which may be contaminated with bullet fragments.

[MeekAndMild]

I'd agree with your opinion that removing fragments from meat is a good idea but I find it laughable that you're trying to pin your thesis with such single case reports, even review articles which list a dozen single cases. Single case reports are normally the sort of 'gee whiz' filler that makes for exciting reading but their oddity is exactly what makes them publishable. Review articles are more credible but still not adequate.

The rest of it goes into circles unless you can see your way to acknowledge how many orders of magnitude greater is the proven risk of the other commonly seen forms of lead intake than this form which seems to be limited to isolated incidents. Or if you fail to recall that my initial statement and follow up statements have been regarding elemental lead and your case reports seem to ignore the distinction between it and accompanying lead salts. The lead in a single sinker could probably kill a whole herd of pigs if it is converted to soluble salts but not if its swallowed whole.

This starts to take on the tone of discussions one sees with biologists in the southwest when they discuss lead levels found in birds killed in power line collisions so I think I'll end my part of it. Have a nice day.

[Tuckahoe]

Bow hunting is lead free and great exercise.

[Yithian]

Since most hunters I know compeltely remove bloodshot meat, the risk is nil... same as this thread.
I can see this topic comming up as a future method of controling firearms.
An even more restrictive ammo.
And, I think it is exactly Tox's goal here.