Partitioning human dietary exposure to ammunition-derived lead in meat from game animals between bullets and shotgun pellets

In making recommendations for restricting uses of lead shotgun pellets and bullets for hunting, regulatory agencies, including those of EU and UK REACH, estimate human health risks from dietary exposure to lead from both ammunition types separately and attempt to monetise benefits of restriction options. However, available data from diet surveys are rarely sufficient to allow straightforward partitioning of dietary exposure between game killed with lead bullets and shotgun pellets. Because information on game meat consumption was limited, the UK REACH Agency’s draft socioeconomic analysis assigned all health-related economic benefits of lead ammunition restriction to shotgun pellets and none to bullets because a much higher tonnage of shotgun pellets than bullets is used. However, differences between the two ammunition types in exposure pathways make tonnage used an unreliable proxy for dietary exposure. Using data for the UK, we partitioned exposure to lead by estimating tonnages of edible game meat shot with bullets and shotgun pellets separately and the mean lead concentrations in these meats. We estimated that ca.21% of human dietary exposure to ammunition-derived lead in the UK is from bullets and 79% from shotgun pellets. This new approach to partitioning risk could be used to inform cost-benefit analysis in the UK and elsewhere when data from food consumption surveys are lacking