TRW, that's an interesting comment on lead in humans. Here in the States, the only direct impact lead had on me was when our Environmental Protection Agency shut down a 50 foot indoor firing range we had in an Army Reserve center, where I was the senior officer. Inadequate ventilation, they said. Too much lead in the air.
Well, we had all the soldiers who worked there full time, not just one weekend a month, tested for lead in their blood. None of them had a blood lead level that was out of the normal range for adults. And in all cases, it was well below the Center for Disease Control's level of concern. Similarly, a study conducted on several hundred volunteers in North Dakota--where hunting and the consumption of wild game are quite common--showed that their average blood lead level was below the nationwide average. And in no case did it approach the CDC's level of concern.
It will be interesting to see what information coming out of Flint, Michigan--where there is currently a serious issue with lead-polluted drinking water--shows us. Problems with lead poisoning in humans--even those of us who are "home loaders" and work with lead shot--don't seem to be all that common. And given that rural North Dakotans showed a lower blood lead level than the national average, I'd guess that perhaps people living in urban areas, in dwellings where there may still be lead paint and lead pipes, are more likely to be impacted by lead accumulation in our bodies than those of us who consume wild game.
