Officials warn pantries to discard donated meat

updated 6:37 p.m. ET March 27, 2008

BISMARCK, N.D. - State health officials have told food pantries in North Dakota to throw out donated venison after fragments from lead bullets were found in the meat.

Tests on at least five samples of venison destined for food pantries had high levels of lead, said Sandi Washek, the Health Department's lead coordinator. A doctor who conducted his own tests also found lead in 60 percent of 100 samples.

Washek said about 17,000 pounds of venison were donated this year through the Sportsmen Against Hunger program. There are about 4,000 to 5,000 pounds still in the 110 pantries that received donations, she said Wednesday.

"We're asking all the food pantries to throw it out in a landfill and not throw it out on garbage day, so no one will rifle through it," she said.

Health officials say children age 6 and younger and pregnant women are at greater risk for lead poisoning, which can cause confusion, learning problems and convulsions, and in severe cases can lead to brain damage and death. Washek said no sickness has been reported from lead-tainted venison.

Dr. William Cornatzer, a Bismarck physician and long-time hunter, said he collected about 100 one-pound packages of ground venison from food pantries in December, with the help of health officials.

"Sixty percent of the packages had multiple fragments of lead in them — I about fell out of my chair," said Cornatzer, a long-time hunter.

Many of the fragments are microscopic, but can still cause harm to humans if ingested, Cornatzer said. "What's very scary about this is you can't feel them — they're like lead dust," he said.

He failed to get a deer this year but his son did, with lead ammunition, and that meat was later discarded.

"Unless the deer was shot with a bow, or low velocity like a shotgun slug, as a physician, my recommendation would be not to eat it," Cornatzer said.

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