The anti-gun activists have co-opted the environmentalists in an effort to get the EPA to regulate lead bullets.

The claim is that lead that is used but misses, or used and hit - where the animal is not recovered, ends up in the food chain and contaminates our food.

Now a quick look at this dismisses it in the entirety.

In the United States we do not eat much of the carnivore type foods, nor of the types of animals that eat carcasses.

Misses of course are not eaten because... it is a hard metal with no taste that an animal associates as food.

Secondly the amounts in total, and compared to the population of the United States, then brings in statistics to show it is very not so much a hazard to society.

Thirdly the typical animal obtained for food stock is outside the normal hunting environment

Fourth we have the final tidbit. Even a pellet is a hard, inedible material. While some portions may get broken off, the typical large bullet is not going to get eaten by an animal. It is not tasty, does not have characteristics they are looking for, and will be passed through their body with very minimal absorption. This is then typically not going to get very far in future generations (tends to stick mostly with the mother, never passed by father, and the metal gets stored in certain areas where we do not see typical next generation spreading as well, thus making it null and void after one generation).

Finally... Lead like most of the soft metals consumed by mammals, ends up in specific regions of the body... Specifically in leads case it goes to bones. Humans tend not to eat bones to terribly much. Which means that lead is often not getting far.

Women of childbearing age today