Ready for the grill -- or landfill?

Nick Baumann, 43, of White Bear Lake, has eaten venison since he was a kid. So has Gary Vasko, 47, of Stillwater. Now they, like many of Minnesota's 500,000 deer hunters, are reconsidering whether to feed their families the deer meat in their freezers left over from last fall's hunt.

Last week the Minnesota Health Department said that one-fourth of 299 samples it tested contained fragments of lead, presumably from bullets -- one chip as big as 46 milligrams.

No illnesses or deaths have been reported from people who have eaten deer or other game animals killed with lead bullets. Still, as a precaution, the Health Department pulled about 12,000 pounds of hunter-donated venison from food shelves statewide.

"The finding of lead in venison is alarming," Vasko said. "I think it would worry anyone with venison in the freezer, especially about feeding your kids."

Hunters aren't the only ones concerned. The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources is worried that some hunters will give up their sport rather than bring venison home that might harm their families. The DNR says it needs the state's half-million whitetail hunters to control the state's burgeoning deer herd, now numbered at more than 1 million animals.

And the ammunition industry, while downplaying health concerns associated with fragmenting lead bullets, is worried about a potential sales drop-off. The possibility of lawsuits or regulatory action outlawing lead bullets -- which were first developed in the 15th century -- is even more bothersome.

"The industry is set up to make lead bullets," Federal Cartridge Co. spokesman Ryan Bronson said. "It's the most effective and affordable material there is."

Federal offers hunters more than 50 nontoxic slugs and bullets in various sizes and calibers. But Bronson said an industry-wide switch to bullets made only from nontoxic materials would take years.

Children and pregnant women are particularly at risk of permanent brain and nerve damage if they consume too much lead, health officials say. Adults also can be stricken, though in the case of deer meat containing lead they likely would be affected only if they consumed it regularly over a period of a few weeks or more.

Unlike bullets made from lead, copper bullets -- which are two or three times more expensive than lead bullets -- don't mushroom on impact and don't fragment. Instead they peel back in the fashion of a banana.

A 20-cartridge box of Federal lead-bullet .30-06 cartridges carries a recommended price of about $33, Bronson said, compared with about $71 for .30-06 copper and tungsten loads.

Minnesota Department of Natural Resources Fish and Wildlife Division Chief Dave Schad said his agency will issue recommendations before the fall hunting seasons advising hunters and deer processors about proper butchering techniques intended to reduce the chances of eating lead-tainted venison.

Baumann, the White Bear Lake hunter, skins, butchers and freezes his deer himself. He also grinds his own venison hamburger.

"My first thought when I heard about lead bullet fragments being found in venison was that lead poisoning from the fragments is a rather remote possibility," he said. "Then I thought, 'I'm glad I butcher my own meat, rather than take it to a processor.' When cutting up a deer to take home, I have no compunction about throwing away damaged meat."

Particles left behind

But a former research director for Winchester ammunition and Federal Cartridge Co. said that even complete evisceration of wound channels during processing won't rid venison of all lead-bullet particles.

Alan Corzine, of Brownstown, Ill., has studied X-rays of animals -- mostly pets --shot with high-powered rifles. He said they often have "comet-like trails" of lead fragments following the bullet, and expanding from it, as it passes into and through the body.

Corzine's wife is a veterinarian, and the X-rays he examined were of animals treated in her clinic.

"I think it would be impossible to clean the wounds entirely of the fragments," Corzine said. "Additionally, in the case of deer, once the bullet and fragments hit soft tissue, they mix with blood and are carried by the blood to other parts of the carcass while the animal is being field-dressed and transported."

Minnesota Department of Health lead poisoning prevention supervisor Dan Symonik said more study is needed to determine the extent of the threat to people, if any.

Symonik said that of the more than 70 donated venison packages his agency found that contained lead fragments, all but one had been ground into hamburger.

"This is a complicated issue," Symonik said. "The first thing we all need to do is calm down and get in a room and decide what we need to do to figure it out. It might be a ballistics study, it might be other kinds of studies. There are a lot of things we need to consider before we proceed."

Symonik said that an adult male who consumes 46 milligrams of lead in venison likely would have no ill effects and would expel the lead over time. But if that amount were consumed three times a week, lead could build up in the person's body.

Lead poisoning symptoms in adults can include headaches, nausea and general aches and pains.

Attack on hunting?

Paul Box, a ballistics technician with Sierra bullets of Sedalia, Mo., a venerable American brand, believes the fuss over lead bullets is a "back-door" way of attacking hunting by the sport's opponents.

"If this were that big of a deal, it would have been killing people a hundred years ago," he said.

Box acknowledged California condors have died after eating lead bullet fragments in unrecovered deer that died after being wounded by hunters, and in gut piles. California now requires hunters to use nontoxic bullets in the large area of the state frequented by condors.

But condors, like waterfowl, ingest and process food differently than people, and that process, in which lead enters the bloodstream relatively quickly, is deadly to birds in ways it isn't to humans, Box said.

Minnesota deer hunter Dave Conrad of Circle Pines tends to agree.

"I've been eating venison steaks and roasts for years," he said. "My kids tend to eat more of the brats and Polish sausage. I can't think of any ill effects anyone has had.

"It makes you think, the news about the lead. But my first reaction is that I would probably need to see more evidence that there's a problem, because I've eaten so much of it."

danderson@startribune.com