Filled Full of Lead

Given this new data suggesting that the consumption of flesh from wild animals causes less inflammation, those who continue to eat meat might benefit from switching to something like venison—but it depends on what kind of ammo you use.

The “potential for human dietary exposure” to “lead bullet fragments in venison from rifle-killed deer.” “Human consumers of wildlife killed with lead ammunition may be exposed to health risks associated with lead ingestion.”

They took X-rays of “30 eviscerated carcasses of White-tailed Deer…shot by hunters with standard lead-core copper-jacketed bullets under normal hunting conditions.” For those thinking, wait a second, can’t you just kind of dig out the bullet like you see on all those old Westerns? Well, you don’t understand modern ammunition.

“All carcasses showed metal fragments and widespread fragment dispersion.” How many fragments? An average of 136. So they went to the store, and scanned the resulting meat packages, revealing tiny metal fragments in the ground meat packages from 80% of the deer. And most of those fragments were lead. They “conclude that people risk exposure to bioavailable lead from bullet fragments when they eat venison from deer killed with standard lead-based rifle bullets and processed under normal procedures. At risk in the U.S. are some ten million hunters, their families, and low-income beneficiaries of venison donations.”

To see any graphs, charts, graphics, images, and quotes to which Dr. Greger may be referring, watch the above video. This is just an approximation of the audio contributed by Kerry Skinner.

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Images thanks to: Malis via Wikimedia Commons and National Park Service.