"You know, those lead bullets aren't so great for my health either."

RODALE NEWS, EMMAUS, PA—In many parts of the country, deer-hunting season is well underway. And while the sport certainly has its opponents, it remains an extremely popular activity that's taken up by roughly 18 million Americans. Even among nonhunters, dining on wild game meat like venison is undergoing a revival, with gourmet foodies and high-end restaurants serving it as a leaner, healthier alternative to beef. But a new study published in the latest issue of Environmental Research finds that there's a good chance that lean venison could be contaminated with lead.

THE DETAILS: Researchers were compelled to do the study after a physician in Bismark, ND, a hunter himself, watched a presentation on the lead poisoning of California condors due to their consumption of game meat contaminated with lead. The physician x-rayed 94 one-pound packages of venison that had been donated to local food banks through a program called Sportsmen Against Hunger, and found lead in about half of them. "Departments of Health in surrounding states, such as Iowa, Minnesota, and Wisconsin, had also found some lead fragments in venison and wild game meat," says study author Shahed Iqbal, PhD, senior service fellow in the Air Pollution and Respiratory Health Branch of the National Center for Environmental Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

In his study, Iqbal analyzed blood samples from 736 North Dakota residents over the age of 2. The study participants were also interviewed to see if they participated in any other activities that might expose them to lead (for instance, car or boat repair or construction) and the frequency and amount of wild game meat (venison, moose, birds, and other wild game) they consumed. They excluded waterfowl, as hunting waterfowl with lead bullets is prohibited in North Dakota.