[neverdem]

Dr. William Cornatzer
This image provided by Bismarck, N.D. physician and hunter Dr. William Cornatzer shows a 2007 CT scan taken of venison packages riddled with lead from high-powered bullets. Other states have joined North Dakota's warning that thousands of pounds of venison given to food pantries could be contaminated by lead from bullets. Hunting groups are calling it an overreaction.

NSSF Statement on Discarding Venison in North Dakota and Minnesota

For more than a century, hundreds of millions of Americans have safely consumed game harvested using traditional hunting ammunition. There is absolutely no peer-reviewed scientific evidence to support the unfortunate and unnecessary overreaction by North Dakota and Minnesota health officials, based on an unpublished study by a local dermatologist, to have food pantries discard perfectly good meat because it was taken with traditional ammunition. Furthermore, we question whether a dermatologist is even qualified to render these opinions, particularly in light of the absence of any scientific findings published by qualified experts. No systematic scientific or epidemiological evidence exists in the scientific literature to support conclusion that there is a human health exposure risk. The dermatologist study does not scientifically establish the existence of a health risk. For example, there is not a blood test to show whether anyone who consumed venison acquired at a food panty had elevated lead levels, let alone that the venison was the source. The decision to take nourishing, high-protein food out of the mouths of the needy was based on a fundamental misunderstanding of the chemistry of elemental lead and the human digestive system. The state is needlessly creating a scare upon hunters that has no basis in science. We strongly urge North Dakota and Minnesota health officials to reconsider their decision and for other states to base their public policy decision on sound science.

This dermatologist must be some kind of environazi.

[ARE SOLE]

I know I am irked. Damn irked.

[deuteronlmy232]

Gov. John Hoeven said the alerts were issued as a precaution. He said the state has a "tremendous working relationship" with hunters, and the questions raised about venison are new.

See that "has", make it had..

[digger48]

Heck, I’ve seen that much shot in one squirrel.

[Dr.Zoidberg]

It's outrageous fear mongering like this that makes me want to take a ball peen hammer to the kneecaps of gaea worshiping/tree hugger/environazi types.

If this stands, watch for a general call for all firearm hunting to be banned because of “lead contamination” of the meat.

[wolfcreek]

One would not normally eat the meat in the area where the bullet enters/exits the animal. This guy’s a dope.

[lakeman]

That picture is a bunch of bull. Iv’e killed upwards of 40 deer for the table and i have never had bullet or slug leave that much lead in the meat. What the heck did the butcher do? Pack up the wound channel?

[TommyDale]

Does this mean that deer must now carry a warning label as approved by the FDA?

[RightWhale]

We need to pick up on these news items a little quicker and sooner. This was news on the MSM two days ago. My vet said the story is ludicrous.

[ladtx]

Er - Doc, normally I think if you just spit it out it won’t hurt ‘cha.

[DBrow]

“Officials in North Dakota, Minnesota and Iowa warn that the meat could be contaminated by lead from bullets.”

Could? Maybe? Lets see some proof based on chemistry.

The CT scan shows high-density points, but if the hunter was using Barnes or similar, the points are copper or brass.

CT cannot identify elements, just relative x-ray density. It takes a little easy work to find out what the dense points are.

[garyhope]

Send it to me. I’ll fire up the grill and open a nice red.

Lead, asbestos, total nanny fascist overreaction.

[CurlyDave]

Two weeks ago, I had a piece of either venison or elk pepperoni from the fall hunting season for lunch. Somewhere along the line, I found a piece of lead about the same size as a BB, but nowhere near round.

As far as I could tell, the only danger was to my teeth. God knows, I have clamped thousands of lead split shot on fishing lines in my youth.

I have been on a work-required annual lead test from the ages of about 50-58*, and no lead has ever been found in my system. I can attest that eating several bullet shot deer, feral hogs, and an occasional elk or two, does not elevate lead levels.

- - -

* The reason behind this was that we were once working with a bullet trap to collect rifle shots at work. One of our female lab techs (very cute) noticed that there was lead dust in the trap, and call our internal industrial health & safety.

The guy who answered the phone knew her by sight, and said “Judy, your right that is lead and you are contaminated. Take off all your clothes and wait for me.”

The net result of this was that all of us got lead tests every year for a long, long time.

[jazusamo]

This dermatologist must be some kind of environazi.

That's my take on it. If that CT scan is indicative of all packaged venison I should have been dead years ago from the hundreds of packages that have been in my freezer.

It's baloney, IMO.

[SJackson]

If you’d like to be on or off this Upper Midwest/outdoors/rural list please FR mail me. And ping me is you see articles of interest.

[westmichman]

Let them eat cake!

[ltc8k6]

“Hunters have alternatives to lead, he said. “I’m a big hunter. I’ve already purchased four boxes of copper bullets to next year,” Cornatzer said. “

No, you haven’t. You may have purchased copper jacketed or copper encapsulated bullets, though. Neither of which will guarantee that you won’t have lead in the wound area of the deer.

[The Great RJ]

The amount of lead showing up in those venison packages would lead me to believe the poor deer was shot with a gatling gun and no one bothered to remove the slugs. I find it far fetched to believe that a deer felled with a single clean shot is riddled with lead fragments particularly if the wound area was excised.

[Fawn]

Well....why don’t they start ‘clubbing’ the deer to death like they do to seals?

[Last Dakotan]

pinger

[Doomonyou]

Off the charts with this claim.