Are you going to continue to sell game with high lead levels?

By Lord Mountbatten (Own work) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
By Lord Mountbatten (Own work) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
This blog has documented the fact that several famous London restaurants sell game, have been informed of the health risks of high lead levels, and have been inactive and in some cases hostile to the idea of addressing these issues:

Rules restaurant – What are the Rules? 23 March 2015, Rules replies 23 March 2015, This was not a fake review 19 June 2015, Henry knows the Rules 17 August 2015.

The Square – Henry on a dark blue square 18 August 2015

The Ledbury – Henry on a dark blue square 18 August 2015

The Jugged Hare – Henry – hare today and gone tomorrow 19 August 2015

These restaurants and long list of others now need to review their practice of selling game meat shot with toxic lead ammunition.

It is now, with the publication of the Lead Ammunition Group’s findings, untenable for restaurants that sell game meat to their customers to ignore the science that shows that there are risks to human health from eating game meat shot with lead.

 

Lead is a highly toxic hazard and presents risk at all levels of exposure. It is especially dangerous as a neurotoxin for both young people and for wild animals.

Lead shot and bullet fragments can be present in game meat at levels sufficient to cause significant health risks to children and adult consumers, depending on the amount of game they consume.

For small game, no proposals have been made to the Group for any measure, short of lead shot replacement, that would ensure that small game entering the food chain do not have elevated lead concentrations.

Safer alternatives to lead ammunition are now available and being improved and adapted all the time for use in different shooting disciplines. There is considerable experience from other countries where change has already been undertaken.

There is no convincing evidence on which to conclude that other options, short of replacement of lead ammunition, will address known risks to human health, especially child health.

 

How do these restaurants intend to respond to this information? Surely they cannot plan to carry on regardless to profit from selling game meat with high lead levels to their customers?

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1 Reply to “Are you going to continue to sell game with high lead levels?”

  1. It amazes me that anyone is allowed to sell lead contaminated meat. If these were conventionally farmed products the vendors could be prosecuted under food safety regulations.

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