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A new study finds that eating wild game meat may raise your blood lead levels.
If you hunt, use lead-free bullets. If you consume game meat, avoid the ground stuff.
RODALE NEWS, EMMAUS, PA—In many parts of the country, deer-hunting season is well underway. And while the sport certainly has its opponents, it remains an extremely popular activity that's taken up by roughly 18 million Americans. Even among nonhunters, dining on wild game meat like venison is undergoing a revival, with gourmet foodies and high-end restaurants serving it as a leaner, healthier alternative to beef. But a new study published in the latest issue of Environmental Research finds that there's a good chance that lean venison could be contaminated with lead.
THE DETAILS: Researchers were compelled to do the study after a physician in Bismark, ND, a hunter himself, watched a presentation on the lead poisoning of California condors due to their consumption of game meat contaminated with lead. The physician x-rayed 94 one-pound packages of venison that had been donated to local food banks through a program called Sportsmen Against Hunger, and found lead in about half of them. "Departments of Health in surrounding states, such as Iowa, Minnesota, and Wisconsin, had also found some lead fragments in venison and wild game meat," says study author Shahed Iqbal, PhD, senior service fellow in the Air Pollution and Respiratory Health Branch of the National Center for Environmental Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
In his study, Iqbal analyzed blood samples from 736 North Dakota residents over the age of 2. The study participants were also interviewed to see if they participated in any other activities that might expose them to lead (for instance, car or boat repair or construction) and the frequency and amount of wild game meat (venison, moose, birds, and other wild game) they consumed. They excluded waterfowl, as hunting waterfowl with lead bullets is prohibited in North Dakota.
Eighty-one percent of the participants consumed wild game meat, with venison being the most popular. No one had lead levels that exceed the CDC's action level of 10 micrograms per deciliter (mcg/dL) of blood, and the highest blood lead level detected was 1.85 mcg/dL, found in people over the age of 65. People who consumed all wild game meat had blood lead levels about 34 percent higher than people who didn't, at 1.27 micrograms/dL, and the researchers noticed that blood levels went up about 0.10 mcg/dL if people ate serving sizes of the meat larger than two ounces, and 0.40 if they ate the more exotic kinds of game, such as moose.
WHAT IT MEANS: The suspected source of exposure is lead ammunition, says Iqbal, although he did note that his study can't rule out additional environmental sources of lead, such as lead in soil. Ammunition scatters throughout an animal’s body beyond the initial point of entry, he explains. "People are cleaning the meat around the wound channel, but they aren't taking it all out."
"Our primary recommendation is to limit consumption of wild game," says Iqbal. "Lead at very low levels can adversely affect human health, especially children." There is no safe level of lead, even for adults. While in children the metal can interfere with neurological development, in adults, lead builds up in bones and is then released as the bones break down with age, raising the risk of high blood pressure, heart disease, and stroke. Currently, the North Dakota Department of Health and other officials are recommending children under age 6 and pregnant women, who are most vulnerable to lead's effects, consume no wild game meat, says Stephen Pickard, MD, epidemiologist at the North Dakota Department of Health. He says that hunters have started paying attention to the issue and are concerned, but he said, the agency is leaving it up to the average wild game meat consumer to determine for himself or herself how much is safe.
Here are some ways for hunters and game-meat lovers to limit their lead exposure from wild game:
• Opt for lead-free bullets. Certainly the easiest way to avoid lead in meat—aside from not eating it at all—is to hunt with copper bullets or other lead-free materials, says Dr. Pickard, who admits that he's not a hunter himself. While these bullets are more expensive, the added cost may be worth it to hunters who want to protect their health, share the meat with children or pregnant women, or donate it to charity.
• Clean the wound—and your campsite—well. Lead fragments can scatter a long way from the site of entry, in some studies, as much as a foot. "You won't get all the lead out, but you will get most of it," says Dr. Pickard, if you clean the wound well. Bullet-damaged tissue is usually cut out anyway, he adds, because it doesn't taste very good; just don't leave it behind. These highly lead-contaminated bits of tissue get eaten by other animals like birds and hawks, who might then suffer from lead poisoning. Dispose of the tissue where it won't be consumed by wildlife.
• Go for whole filets. "Most of where we have observed the lead fragments has been in ground meat," says Dr. Pickard. He's not sure why that is, "but we have been concerned with commercial processors that batch in the grinder," he adds, referring to processors that combine a large quantity of wild game meat and then grind it in a single batch. There's the possibility that a lead-bullet fragment could get lodged in a grinder and contaminate multiple batches. Tests on venison have found that lead levels are lower in whole filets.
By Emily Main Rodale
