Lead found in venison collected from Minnesota food shelves
Star Tribune
April 10, 2008

Minnesota officials announced today that laboratory tests have confirmed the presence of lead fragments in a number of venison samples collected from Minnesota food shelves.

No reports of illness associated with the venison have been made, but the state has directed food shelves to destroy remaining venison. Consumers who have venison obtained from a Minnesota food shelf are asked to throw it away.

“The venison donated through this state program is subject to the same standard set for regulated food companies,†Agriculture Commissioner Gene Hugoson said. “One person could eat this venison and receive a high dose of lead, whereas another person might not ingest any lead at all. Since it can’t be determined with certainty who might receive meat with a high dose of lead, we need to err on the side of caution.â€

The Minnesota Department of Agriculture (MDA) laboratory tested 299 samples of venison donated to food shelves through Minnesota’s Hunter Harvested Venison Donation Program. The tests found lead fragments in 76 samples; The amount varied from 0.185 milligrams to 46.3 milligrams. The high level of variability among samples means that no generalizations can be made and that additional testing is needed. However, because food shelves often serve at-risk individuals such as young children and pregnant women, state officials chose to have food shelves destroy the product.

The initial venison samples came from a custom processor in Bemidji and distribution centers in Duluth and Rochester. Since November 2007, the program has distributed nearly 78,000 pounds of venison to 97 food shelves across Minnesota. As of April 8, the food shelves had roughly 12,000 pounds of venison remaining.

Samples first were examined by X-ray radiography at a commercial food inspection company, and the MDA laboratory conducted subsequent lead analysis. The tests examined both ground venison and whole cuts. Results varied according to the type of venison (ground vs. whole-cut) and the location from which the sample was collected. MDA tests found the lead fragments were not uniformly distributed in the meat. This made it difficult to assess an “average†dose a person might consume from a single serving.

According to the Minnesota Department of Health (MDH), elevated levels of lead in the bloodstream can harm both children and adults, but the exact level at which health impacts occur can depend on a variety of factors. The most at-risk groups are children under 6 and pregnant women. While high-level lead poisoning can be fatal, the symptoms of low-level lead consumption may not be obvious.

“We don’t have enough information or samples to make broad conclusions yet, but based on the available data it appears there is a chance someone could get a harmful dose of lead by eating this product,†Health Commissioner Dr. Sanne Magnan said. “We support the decision to destroy the remaining product, and we will work with MDA and DNR to address any food safety concerns moving forward.â€

Most adults can tolerate small amounts of lead exposure without noticeable symptoms, but pregnant women and children face potential risk from even short-term and relatively low-level exposure. MDH recommends that people contact a doctor if they have concerns about potential lead exposure.

The Minnesota Hunter Harvested Venison Donation Program is operated by MDA in partnership with the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources and state food shelves. The program requires that all donated deer be processed by licensed food processors.

The sky is falling! The sky is falling!


Can't stop hunting any other way? Villainize the good that hunters are doing and nullify our efforts by wasting the product of our caring. The only place that I can see where the lead might be getting into the packages is during the processing of the carcasses. Those into whose care the carcasses are placed are careless and negligent in properly preparing the meat. If they are throwing wound channel meat into the grinder because they are too lazy to cut around it then I can see where some lead might get into the batch.

Regardless of the reason, it's the hunters that will take the hickey for it.

Alan

quote:

The only place that I can see where the lead might be getting into the packages is during the processing of the carcasses.

Or some bullets fragment upon entering the animal and the fragments travel farther in flesh than we thought.

Which appears likely.



Bullet Fragmentation Study: Supplementary Data

There are a great many hunters who take great pains not to shoot deer in the fleshy parts of their bodies. There may be some problems with the super fragmenting bullets used by some hunters and more problems with careless or poor shot placement.

Perhaps if the "chicken littles" of the world want to X-ray the meat they should do it Before it's processed and remove that part and serve up the rest.

Just an idea.

Alan

I donated 5 deer to the MN program last fall. I'm sure the 3 shot with TSX's were NOT the problem. The other 2 were double lung pass throughs with interlocks. Not a health issue there either.

I'm sure the issue is with wound channel grindage. That being said, how far are we from going "Kalifornia" with a lead bullet ban?

GE

Skinner,

I started another thread above re: MN venison and lead toxicity, not seeing this one first. The Peregrine Fund obviously has a political agenda and the x-ray seen above probably represents their worse case scenerio if it was not a plant using frangible bullets.

This probably is just a lefty back door war on bullets rather than guns.

Even with a frangible bullet, I do not think it is possible to show that much metal density on the radiograph from a gunshot. Maybe a point blank shotgun hit, but I would suspect a radiopaque fluid was used to "enhance" the margins of the damage area.

FWIW

MFH

We shouldn't be trying to increase the number of Minnesotans anyway.

isn't it amazing that we all surived drinking out of water hoses and living arround all that lead paint

Next thing you know they'll be claiming that drinking Sterno is bad for you .

To the extent that lead is showing up in processed venison, it is due to the use of commercial meat processers. These are the same fine corporate folks who brought us mechanical deboning that cuts their labor costs and nets more meat per carcass -- and also fills your hamburger with bone chips. No hunter I know would fail to dispose of any meat that is bloodshot, which is by definition the only meat which could contain lead fragments. But the commercial guys just happily grind it all up together to improve their carcass yeild by .8%.

In addition to the unpleasantness of potentially chipping a tooth on ground bone fragments, were you aware that heavy metal concentrates in bone and your dose of environmentally ambient heavy metals like mercury and LEAD goes up exponentially from consuming COMMERCIALLY processed mechanically deboned meat? But hey -- it's their right and they won it fair and square by paying tons of money to lobby our governmental watchdogs to approve it despite the hazards to public health.