8/26/2010

Is Obama administration moving towards a ban on leaded ammunition?

Some information on this proposed ban and its impact is available here.

Some other information on a U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) study from 2008 is available here. Only a small percentage (5.94 percent) of venison shot with lead ammunition was found to have lead in the meat.

The 0.3 +-g/dl (micrograms per deciliter) difference is small but not "insignificant." There was a statistically significant difference in blood lead level between game-consumers and non game-consumers at P<0.0001 level (statistically highly significant). Granted, the mean difference of 0.3 +-g/dl more lead in the blood of game-consumers than non game-consumers is not large by contemporary levels (although it is orders of magnitude higher than the 0.016 􏰂g/dl baseline that the report recommends be the reference point). But, the conclusion from the study is simple: People who eat game are exposed to more lead than people who don􏰄t eat game. That's all. The study design could not determine whether that exposure was biologically important because blood lead elevation is short-lived.

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2 Comments:

Blogger Nucleus said...

Blood levels really don't show overall exposure well, see http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1519877/pdf/envhper00377-0044.pdf

I doubt that the lead is coming from the game, but rather from inhaling lead dust from shooting. You can minimize your lead dust exposure with jacketed bullets and lead free primers of course, but the evidence prompted me to cut back on my shooting a few years back.

Hans

8/27/2010 6:00 AM  
Blogger Martin G. Schalz said...

The Obama administration is moving towards a complete ban on all ammo, not just lead.

Our government has slowly been depriving us of our God given rights in an attempt to achive total control of all citizens, and history is the foundation upon which we must view these acts by our so called elected officials.

Never has a dictatorship been established without first disarming the citizens, or those who oppose the would be dictator.

8/27/2010 11:25 AM  

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