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Arthur
PostPosted: Wed Jun 14, 2006 8:17 am  Reply with quote



Joined: 13 Jun 2006
Posts: 6
Location: California

A while back I did some research on the health effects of swallowing lead shot, found some studies from different parts of the world that were on
point. thought someone else might be interested.

Lead in the metal form, such as shot and fishing sinkers, is stable and slow to oxidize, and basically safe to humans. When it does oxidize it creates
a protective coating that retards further oxidation.

Lead as part of a compound that can be absorbed in the body,
or in a gaseous or fume state is dangerous.

People all around the world that eat a lot of shot game routinely swallow
lead shot with no more health hazard then swallowing small watermelon
seeds. The lead just passes on through.

We are talking about all but the smallest of infants. Small infants do have
a tiny chance of lead objects getting stuck in the stomach where acid can
work on it for long periods of time.

Even in the extremely rare case where shot gets caught in the appendix
for much of a person's life there are no apparent health effects, because
the appendix is at the start of the large intestine, well beyond the stomach where HCL acid does it's main work.

Tests done on streams and water where a lot of fishing takes place have
always found no effect whatsoever on the lead content in the water.
Any lead is always from a chemical compound, not from the metal.

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budrichard
PostPosted: Wed Jun 14, 2006 10:36 am  Reply with quote
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Joined: 31 Oct 2005
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Location: Wisconsin

Lead shot is not a problem for humans. What is a problem is lead particulate whether from ranges or reloading. Internal consumption can be a problem. Tinned canned food made with lead tin contributed to the demise of some Arctic expeditions. Lead is also harmful to child development. -Dick
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hoashooter
PostPosted: Wed Jun 14, 2006 5:05 pm  Reply with quote
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Joined: 08 Nov 2005
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Location: Illinois

Wash those hands after loading, casting,shooting,etc and you will live to a ripe old age--if nothing else kills ya Twisted Evil Twisted Evil Twisted Evil Wink
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Birdswatter
PostPosted: Wed Jun 14, 2006 7:05 pm  Reply with quote
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I believe the tin canned food problem would be attributable to lead leaching into the food and the food then being consumed. Perhaps this was more prevalent with acidic foods like tomatos? That scenario is very different than ingesting lead in pellet form and does not invalidate the information from the original post.

I wash up after every reloading and range session. The personnel assigned to our Department's range are required to undergo periodic testing for lead levels in their bodies. I've been told that problems can arise from working in the pits where the targets are changed and lead particles are airborne. They try to limit their time changing targets. I haven't heard of anyone testing with excessive levels yet, but the hazard is there.
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Lawrence U
PostPosted: Wed Jun 14, 2006 7:41 pm  Reply with quote
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Joined: 06 Jun 2006
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Location: Mobile, AL

Maybe that explains that strange twitch I get when I'm working the pits. Nah, it's wondering if that fool with the Barret is out there again Shocked

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Blessed be the Lord, my rock,
Who trains my hands for war,
And my fingers for battle. Ps 144:1.
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Arthur
PostPosted: Thu Jun 15, 2006 7:57 am  Reply with quote



Joined: 13 Jun 2006
Posts: 6
Location: California

Lead particles into the lungs is a different matter, I am talking about
eating lead metal. In the lungs lead is able to more easily enter
the blood. Eating lead shot is what I was concerned about and did the
research on.

Canned foods is also a different matter because lead has
become a compound with other elements in the long, closed,
acidic environment. In some parts of the world lead is still used in
canning. Stupid, but true. In non acidic foods they have a history
of no problems and have kept doing it.

What info I have given is solid. I wanted to pass it on in case
anyone else, like myself, had concerns about it.

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Birdswatter
PostPosted: Thu Jun 15, 2006 9:52 am  Reply with quote
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Thanks Arthur....good info.
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16gaugeguy
PostPosted: Thu Jun 15, 2006 10:05 am  Reply with quote
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Joined: 12 Mar 2005
Posts: 6535
Location: massachusetts

Arthur, while I appreciate the info you've posted, truth is always the first victim when political or military war is declared against any adversary. Propaganda, slant, spin, or just plain horse manure, whatever you wish to call it, if its repeated enough by those in power, it becomes "the truth." Your facts have come too late to the party. The public has been indocrinated or brain washed for too long now.

The biggest weapon in the government's arsenal is fear. anyone with any sense should look very carefully at the situation whenever the government starts telling us who or what the enemy is. That goes for any government, in any part of the world, including ours.
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Birdswatter
PostPosted: Thu Jun 15, 2006 11:07 am  Reply with quote
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WHAT!?!?!?! Confused Shocked
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16gaugeguy
PostPosted: Thu Jun 15, 2006 1:41 pm  Reply with quote
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Location: massachusetts

Let me unconfuse you there BSer. Those in our government who are anti-gun are using lead toxicity as the bugaboo to advance their agenda. Its been going on for 50 years or more. Most uninformed or uninvolved folks hear the words lead, lead shot, or lead bullets, and automatically are in favor of doing away with lead ammo, any facility where it is used, and any pastime that involves its use. It takes an effort to educate them to the facts. Often, the facts are ignored because the public has already been stampeded with fear by our illustrious political leaders for thier own purposes.

Originally, lead poisoning became a political vehicle in the early to mid '60's when it was found that young children were becoming exposed to it by eating lead based paint chips. This started a study to find out how bad things were and the potential damage the toxin was doing. As usual, it started out with good intentions.

However, the lead issue was morphed into a racial issue, because a lot of kids from the poorer sections of our more northern cities had the highest concentrations of lead in their systems. The liberals in government went wild with this as a vehicle to help expand the welfare system and to court and control the emerging northern urban black vote. Asbestos got thrown into the mix here too. Funds were appropriated, used, abused, and stolen to both study the problem and to remove it. This still going on today, but has lost much of its political clout. Still, a lot of money gets wasted.

Next came lead in gasoline and auto emissions. The liberal faction that coalesced and gained a clear congressional majority in the 60's jumped on this to court the emerging environmentalist movement votes forming up in the early '70's. Along with this came the lots of money for studies and solutions to the damage from toxic run off from mine operation tailings. Along the way, a lot of lucritive western real estate changed hands too as the environmental movement snowballed and the politicos and their cronies found ways to skin a profit.

Next up was the lead in waterfowl study and we gun owners and hunters were now on the bubble. This study was highly biased and was stretching the truth pretty thin. However, by now, lead was a dirty word and a hot button for politicians to cull votes and gain power. Truth did not matter anymore. There were profits in the offing, open hunting areas to be controlled and acquired, wetlands to drain and develop, gun clubs to close, and political power to be gained.

Some of the findings of these studies are valid. Some of the problems identified and some of the solutions are also valid and benificial. However, a lot of horse manure got thrown into the issue for purely political and monetary reasons. As is usual, our government leaders and their cronies found a way to personally and politically benifit from the issue and the solutions, consequences be damned. So about as much damage has been done as undone.

In short, lead, and anyone who uses it is the enemy. Thats you and I bub. We are an easy mark in the sights of our own representatives. Get used to it.

The same techniques are applied to any decent cause by virtually all governments to a greater or lesser extent, for better or worse. Its up to the society that allows them to govern to watch them closely.

Consider this. Hitler emerged on the scene out of the suffering German society was enduring in the aftermath of a previous political fiasco-WWI. He promised a solution to their problems. Part of it was the "Final Solution." Jews were identified as one of "the enemy." Perhaps if more folks better understood what was going on, the whole shameful mess could have been avoided including that damned war.

My point--Love your country, but do not trust your government. Always question everything they say. Be a healthy skeptic. If we all did this, much of our own problems and suffering could easily be avoided. Thomas Jefferson said "The price of freedom is eternal vigilance." He was talking about government and its intrinsic evils. That is any government including our own. Perhaps its time to listen to him.
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Arthur
PostPosted: Thu Jun 15, 2006 3:00 pm  Reply with quote



Joined: 13 Jun 2006
Posts: 6
Location: California

16gaugeguy,

I agree with much of what you say and appreciate what you have done
with this site. I will be joining shortly, the only delay is my situation that I
have been in the last several years, it is unbelievable. After it breaks in the
media I may identify myself and you will understand. It is real big and will be
coming out of San Diego very, very soon. They are telling me it is imminent.

I will then be able to get on with my life and have access to my assets,
get back to the country and country life. I have been in the system for far
too long.


You will understand when it breaks. You don't have to convince me about
the horrible situation this once great county is in. After this breaks you will
know I really understand.

Sorry about talking about myself.

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revdocdrew
PostPosted: Thu Jun 15, 2006 3:02 pm  Reply with quote
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Joined: 28 Dec 2005
Posts: 2016
Location: Glendale, AZ

OK fellas-was hoping somebody else might do this cause I'm still recovering from Guatemala but here's some SCIENCE which you may choose to believe or ignore (and get very very sick Crying or Very sad )
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=lead+poisoning+emedicine&btnG=Google+Search
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Arthur
PostPosted: Thu Jun 15, 2006 3:44 pm  Reply with quote



Joined: 13 Jun 2006
Posts: 6
Location: California

I knew revdoc would be coming along with some scary stuff, but you are
wrong in reality. My initial post on this is correct. I go to the truth
whether I like it or not. Objective analysis will fully support my initial
post on this as being correct.

When I was very young my father was sent to Stanford to find out why
he was developing paralysis in his legs, and it was due to him being a
painter and washing the paint brushes, lead compounds, in thinner at
the end of the day. He quit doing it and he was fine is a few weeks.
The human body is very efficient at removing lead, or storing safely in the
bones, if given a chance, and I understand the danger from compounds that
can be absorbed. But lead metal is another thing regardless of what those
that make money or power from scaring people.

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87016ga
PostPosted: Thu Jun 15, 2006 7:17 pm  Reply with quote



Joined: 13 Jun 2006
Posts: 145
Location: minnesota

i offer up the following to help substantiate 16gg's last post (as if he really needs the help of an 870 shooter Laughing )

in the late 40's-early 50's the legendary Elmer Keith (co-founder of the 44mag cartridge,among many other achievements) wrote a book titled "shotguns" in which one chapter deals with the substitution of lead shot for waterfowling. according to keith the university of minnesota had done testing to find a suitable replacement for lead shot as far back as the 1930's Exclamation Exclamation Exclamation part of the pittman-robertson act Question Question Question

anyway, technology being what it was at the time let the study conclude that the best replacement for lead shot was of all things: GOLD Exclamation Exclamation
because of the favorable density to lead. obviously due to the cost that idea was 86ed

the least favorable substitute for lead shot: STEEL Exclamation Exclamation
it was scraped as a replacement idea because it was found to be too light Exclamation as well as difficult to manufacture

if anyone can find the book, give it a read, just keep in mind the era in which it was written and in the typical elmer keith style: blount, and politically incorrect.......if you even give a damn about that

the book may have been written even earlier than the late 40's, but the last printing was around 1952. my copy is MIA. moved twice since the last time i read it.
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16gaugeguy
PostPosted: Fri Jun 16, 2006 5:55 am  Reply with quote
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I forget most of the names of the folks involved and the exact dates of the lead in waterfowl study. However, the truth revealed by the finding of what was causing the decline of our waterfowl did not exactly coincide with what the political folks who started it and funded it wanted to hear. So they skewed the facts to fit their agenda. What was actually decimating our waterfowl was the droughts of the late 1960's and into the 1970's plus massive tracts of habitat loss to developement. The lead was a convenient ploy to misdirect the eyes and ears of the public.

Were some ducks and geese lost to lead injestion. Probably, but not the huge numbers claimed. The sample percentages were heavily "interpreted" or skewed to inflate the actual numbers of birds assumed to be dying of lead poisoning solely from shot inhjestion. There was absolutely no way of proving where the lead was actually coming from. It could have come from any number of sources from artificially introduced chemical compounds from industrial waste and/or processes to naturally occuring lead in the environment. Even the other toxins found in the dead birds and also other more obvious causes of death were ignored. The whole damned study was a sham.

This is not to say that lead toxicity can be ignored. Far from it. The stuff will kill you in some circumstances. But its not the bugaboo the anti gun and slick Willies in our government would have you believe. For certain uses lead is quite safe. Lead poisoning from shot in the environment is not nearly as dangerous as these bozos say it is. Only in rare and in very specific conditions is this true. To say that lead game bullets are a considerable threat to the environment is laughable to the point of being a sick joke. A few lost lead sinkers in a stream, a lake, or the ocean is not a real threat either unless there are other, even more lethal toxins present in sufficient concentrations and for enough time to help break lead down into a solution--stuff like sulphuric or hydrochloric acid or mercury. If that stuff is present in sufficient amounts to be a factor, lead will be the last of your worries, because you will probably be well on the way to being dead already.

My point remains. That sham is just one of many "we the people" have been subjected to in the last half of the 20th century and into this new one. The reason is obvious. Its because we have allowed the process to happen. This nation was founded on a simple principle of representational government. We elect our government. We allow them to govern. We are responsible for what they do regardless of blame. If we allow these shams and bull shit to continue, then we are giving them our blessings by not taking steps to stop the wrongdoing.

We are not nearly as helpless as we pretend to be. It just takes courage, effort, and hard work to make our representatives behave. Collectively, we just are not doing our part, and it shows. We are losing our freedoms and our way of life, because we are letting them be taken without a fight. That is the hardest truth of all to face. Unfortunately, it is our children and our childrens' children who will suffer the consequences of our failures to right these governmental wrongs.
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