Lead and opinion

[Dorsettaff]

I can't agree, there is a distinct lack of evidence of clinical illness resulting from consuming lead shot game, as opposed to other researched forms of lead exposure such as those impacted by their occupation etc. Surely if there is a potentially serious toxic metal issue it's mercuric amalgam dental fillings?

Mercuric amalgam in dental fillings.......

Now that is an argument for another day. Dental amalgam is a very stable alloy (also containing tin, zinc and copper) which will release small amounts of elemental mercury and by default mercury salts during the lifetime of the restoration. Is it harmful? Well like lead, mercury is a very toxic element. moreover in its various salt forms, however there is NO hard scientific evidence that there is any harm caused by mercury amalgam. When you think that most people born before 1965 will have grams and grams of this placed in various teeth where it is corroding and deteriorating over its lifetime. Millions upon millions of teeth are restored worldwide with amalgam and people dont appear to be dropping like flies (compare that shall we say giving a million people penicillin and aspirin and seeing what happens). You are more at risk when someone takes a 250,000 rpm diamond bur and drills the filling out without sufficient water cooling and suction from the released mercury vapour let alone from the mackerel you then eat from the coastal waters where the effluent containing the amalgam waste is dumped....see prev post regarding tuna sandwiches.
The one cohort who are constantly exposed to mercury vapour are dentists and dental nurses....who funnily enough when tested had statistically no difference in elevated Hg levels compared to the general population and anecdotally less than the tuna sarnie munchers.

Mercury use in dental amalgams is being phased out and will be banned in Europe within the next few weeks ( Jan 1st 2025). See also the Minimata Convention that came into effect in 2017.

For the lead argument you would need to test a large sample of population who had only ever eaten lead shot meat, had never lived near a road prior to Jan 1st 2000, had never lived in an old house with lead pipes , ever visited anywhere in mid Wales or licked the paint off their toy soldiers.

Such a cohort would be hard to find so any results would be more anecdotal and any findings would be statistically insignificant.

I think we can all agree that any heavy metal exposure is bad ( and I would put Trivium, Anthrax and Napalm Death in that category for good measure)

 

[CookM]

I have eaten game since the early '70s.
Also nipped up split shot with my teeth when coarse fishing from '82 to '91......am l doomed.
Bronze maggots were the high peril then causing bladder cancer from chrysoidine.

My wife had bladder cancer and never touched a maggot.

Finnbar Saunders be quiet at the back.

 

[Apthorpe]

I did a literature search today. Looking for the terms "lead poisoning" and "ammunition" 191 results.
Wildlife
There is a very comprehensive review of lead poisoning of raptors from this year: Lead poisoning of raptors: state of the science and cross-discipline mitigation options for a global problem doi: 10.1111/brv.13087

What a surprise, it's the same clique recycling the same material again. I had observed above that a study, which I suspect to be this one, found that fewer than a dozen raptors in the UK had been poisoned with lead. A number I find surprisongly low, but the devil's in the detail not the headline.

I've also read plenty of case reports of waterfowl suffering from ingested lead shot. The credible evidence is there, birds die as a result of the ingestion of lead ammunition.
Humans
Certainly fewer cases of lead poisoning and I couldn't find any relating to a human death from lead shot. However there are reports of high blood lead levels in people eating meat with lead in it, including one curious one where the hunter only ate shot meat, had high blood lead, which started to fall when he switched to non-lead. Redirecting

Why is the author semi-literate? Leaching not "leeching", and "shrapnel" is not a proper term. The bias of the author ex ante is abundantly clear.
In statistics, is n=1 a credible sample size? Other than anecdotal interest, what is the proper weight which an impartial scientist should give to studies of an individual? Can you get a drug through clinical testing after testing it on one person? You get the point. This is anecdote, not useable evidence.

So the evidence that lead can enter the body through ingestion from ammunition is there.

Everyone knows it can happen, it is just that overall it doesn't happen to a significant extent. You're just taking an extremist position whereby because nobody has ever been killed by it and there are vanishingly few reports of anyone ever being harmed by it, then that is a good reason to ban it. This is completely disproportionate.

Is it killing people? - probably not based on my searching. Could it be harming people at a low level and present a risk to un-born children? - absolutely.

Or maybe not. There isn't sufficient evidence for you to claim "absolutely". Absolutely not is just as valid. Is there documented evidence of it harming people on a significant scale in the UK? Absolutely not.

Is it killing wildlife? - yes, both directly and in sub-lethal effects.

It is very surprising how few animals have been documented as being killed or harmed by lead shot in the UK.

Is it harming populations? - possibly not, the review I mentioned points to this as a gap in the evidence.

With the exception of .22RF and airgun, there is no compelling reason to retain lead as ammunition for hunting.

How do you reach that conclusion having just listed the facts that lead ammunition isn't known to be significantly harmful to humans as currently used and there is not good evidence that it harms UK wildlife populations?
You are not being logical. The evidence, to the extent you've described here, and even disallowing any dispute over the evidence, does not merit a ban. It doesn't show much harm to either human, animal or environment.

 

[Twodogs]

Having just spent far too long reading the report in full, all I can conclude is it will probably be trebles all round for the authors.

This report is a good example of smoke and mirrors, speculation and pure guesswork with very little fact, but why let that get in the way.

Anybody interested in making “lead bullets” in 6.16mm or 0.2429” diameter?

 

[Buchan]

@Apthorpe "What a surprise, it's the same clique recycling the same material again."

I feel like Jack Sparrow and Barbossa perpetually fighting...

What do you mean by "the same clique"? My search was a standard literature search scanning all of the publications I have access to for articles on lead poisoning It's standard scientific investigation, I know of no other way to present information from which one can form an opinion.

 

[Apthorpe]

@Apthorpe "What a surprise, it's the same clique recycling the same material again."

I feel like Jack Sparrow and Barbossa perpetually fighting...

Why? What is wrong with accepting that the state of the facts do not merit a ban? You've already had to accept that there is no real evidence that it does any harm to humans in the UK, and that there's very little real evidence of it doing harm to animals in the UK, even at an individual level and certainly not at population levels. (With the exception of some wetlands, already covered by the existing legislation.) Given that the conditions necessary to justify banning lead are not present, why do you keep insisting that it's OK to ban it? It did occur to me after the phrasing of one of your previous comments that perhaps you think it is OK to prohibit something unless there is a good reason to permit it?

What do you mean by "the same clique"?

Pain, Green et al. Researchers employed by or with links to anti-hunting organisations. They are not independent.

My search was a standard literature search scanning all of the publications I have access to for articles on lead poisoning It's standard scientific investigation, I know of no other way to present information from which one can form an opinion.

What do you normally do if you don't find enough valid information to support a hypothesis? Insist on it anyway? Or review the hypothesis in light of the absence of good, supporting data?

It seems to me rather telling that you still won't say whether you would change your mind if you discovered the facts didn't support your opinion. Are you really being objective about this?

 

[Buchan]

Why? What is wrong with accepting that the state of the facts do not merit a ban? You've already had to accept that there is no real evidence that it does any harm to humans in the UK, and that there's very little real evidence of it doing harm to animals in the UK, even at an individual level and certainly not at population levels. (With the exception of some wetlands, already covered by the existing legislation.) Given that the conditions necessary to justify banning lead are not present, why do you keep insisting that it's OK to ban it? It did occur to me after the phrasing of one of your previous comments that perhaps you think it is OK to prohibit something unless there is a good reason to permit it?

Pain, Green et al. Researchers employed by or with links to anti-hunting organisations. They are not independent.

What do you normally do if you don't find enough valid information to support a hypothesis? Insist on it anyway? Or review the hypothesis in light of the absence of good, supporting data?

It seems to me rather telling that you still won't say whether you would change your mind if you discovered the facts didn't support your opinion. Are you really being objective about this

I started this thread trying to understand why some people do not accept the credible evidence on lead ammunition because I've had similar discussion with clients over the years on vaccines, wormers, homeopathy to name a few. I understand your viewpoint of not trusting papers from people employed by wildlife organisations even though they are in reputable publications and could be challenged.

I have enough information that ingested lead is a problem for animals, I've treated them (mixed results) and seen colleague's case reports. They are scientifically credible.

One could settle this, a double blind trial, feeding lead ammunition to group A and not to group B; and measure the blood lead levels.

And yes, I would ban it for culling for food. Barnes TTSX work very well in my rifle, have done for a number of years. However, shall we agree to disagree?

 

[Apthorpe]

I started this thread trying to understand why some people do not accept the credible evidence on lead ammunition

This question very much is relevant to you as well, because you remain in firm denial of what the scientific evidence is, or is not..

because I've had similar discussion with clients over the years on vaccines, wormers, homeopathy to name a few.

No, you've had different discussions about things like vaccines and homeopathy because the fundamentals are different. Vaccines are carefully exhaustively trialled with large numbwrs of data points in properly controlled scientific experiments. Unlike claims made for lead ammo which rely on as few as one data point in papers you cited. Homeopathy is bull**** with no scientific or functional basis at all, but perhaps you believe in homeopathy?

I understand your viewpoint of not trusting papers from people employed by wildlife organisations even though they are in reputable publications and could be challenged.

Whether I trust them or not, I have reached my opinion on the presumption that the data in them is true. I take issue only with the conclusions drawn from poor or even totally absent data being extrapolated and serially manipulated well beyond a level anyone numerate could be confident in.
I'm not even mentioning the equally reputable papers demonstrating how many scientific papers reach the wrong conclusions purely because if the laws of maths.
What I would point out is that you haven't demonstrated anything I've based my opinion on to be anything other than true.

I have enough information that ingested lead is a problem for animals, I've treated them (mixed results) and seen colleague's case reports.

The source of all of this is ammunition? Given that much of the country has geological levels of lead in topsoil at over 100mg/kg (according to the UK soil observatory's data based on large scale data records), I'm far from persuaded that lead ammunition is of any more than negligible consequence to the overwhelming majority of wildlife, or even the grit-eating subset.

They are scientifically credible.

I'm sure it is harmful to animals,IF they consume it from ammunition and IF they do so im large numbers. Both those ifs have not been demonstrated scientifically or otherwise in any credible manner. I certainly wouldn't eat lead, but I feed lots of lead-shot game to my family.

One could settle this, a double blind trial, feeding lead ammunition to group A and not to group B; and measure the blood lead levels.

That is not the issue at stake., and it's deeply irrational for you to have made that statement. (We could try a personal trial if you like, I eat lead shot game two or three times a week, reload, and in my youth once swallowed a live .22 round (40grs vs the 26 grains in your very ill Swedish case). Want to compare blood levels or any of the alleged effects of low level blood poisoning?)
You keep making this error, despite my having pointed it out before. The issue is whether lead expisure from lead ammo actually happens.
We already both know there is no major risk to human health. The issue is whether large numbers of animals are eating enough lead ammunition to be harmed at population levels. Nobody has ever observed that.

And yes, I would ban it for culling for food.

Culling for food is a nonsensical phrase. If you're culling, it's because there are too many. Incidentally, you may want to check the legality of your attitude to stalking. We shoot them for the damage they cause or to maintain a healthy population, not because we're hungry. If you're exploiting them, then for food or money..

Barnes TTSX work very well in my rifle, have done for a number of years.

Scientifically forming policy on the strength of a single anecdote again? Not for me thanks.

However, shall we agree to disagree?

I Think so. I just feel for the people you're teaching or training such woefully weak thinking to.

 

[Buchan]

Oi! Feck off with the homeopathy guff!! (but I like the humour). The comment at the end is, at best, poor and unworthy of what is a reasonable disagreement on what constitutes evidence and rational thought.

 

[Bavarianbrit]

Bit off topic but when I did my apprenticeship at Humber/Hillman in Coventry in 1965-70 the 1965 Hillman Minx model had its rear wing fins that were made up by lead loading the older non finned wing tops as it was cheaper using workers to do it than remaking the rear wing press tools to include the fins for a running out model.
These workers were all given some pints of milk every day to ward off the ill effects of "known even then" lead poisoning.

 

[Klenchblaize]

So, I need to apply for a Variation to reaquire a 6mm (243) as there is such a difference in lead content in a .25 chambering??

Asking for a friend!

K