Lead shot claims rejected by experts
Shooting is placing thousands of children at risk of brain damage through eating game that has been killed with lead ammunition, a controversial report is to claim.
The document by the independent Lead Ammunition Group (LAG) – set up by government ministers to examine the issue – found some 10,000 children are growing up in households where "they could regularly be eating sufficient game shot with lead ammunition to cause them neuro-developmental harm and other health impairments".
It also claims that experts estimate that tens of thousands of adults could be suffering from the effects of being exposed to lead shot in game.
But Steve Barker, who runs SJ Barker Pheasant Shooting in Shrewsbury, said the claims were a "load of rubbish".
"I just think it's unbelievable," he said.
"There are so many other ways of lead getting into your system which are far more dangerous in my opinion. It is a load of rubbish.
"Lead is a poison in sufficient quantities, of course it is, but there are far worse sources of lead in people's diet than this.
"I have eaten game shot with lead all of my life and I have never had any problems, and I know a lot of other people who have as well and are similarly unaffected."
Jonathan Crow, who runs Wrekin Sporting Classic Game Shooting on Wappenshall Farm in Wellington, Telford, said there was no scientific evidence to back up the claims being made.
He said: "It's about exclusivity. If you ate only one type of any food it would cause long-term damage. If you only exclusively ate cheese there would be the risk of becoming lactose intolerant.
"If you ate a diet exclusively of fast food hamburgers it could well make you brain dead, there is some evidence to support that.
"There is no science to support this and as it stands it is a non-story."
The unpublished report – which is to be made public after going before the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and the Food Standards Agency – is understood to have concluded that a complete phasing out of lead shot is needed to prevent health problems.
The report, which follows a five-year inquiry, also found that 6,000 tons of lead from shotgun and rifle ammunition is discharged every year and at least 2,000 tons of it is left on or close to the surface of the soil, where it can be swallowed by birds or animals.
