Ban highly toxic lead fishing weights

Though the angling industry is directed by the likes of the World Health Organisation to remove lead from angling as it is a poison the industry fails to do so. Lead angling weights are known to cause humans, especially infants, a plethora of serious ill effects including: cancers, birth defects and brain diseases. Lead fishing weights are also proven to be hugely negative within the environment causing the death and harm to a multitude of life forms, from invertebrate life through to bird life. Only recently the European Chemical Agency have released a comprehensive report again highlighting the huge amount of ill effects to both humans and the environment. Unfortunately the angling trade 'protects' this product due to the huge profits made even though the facts about the harm caused by its manufacture and use are evident, and substantially proven. Just think, lead has been removed from the majority of walks of life because of its toxicity but not in angling - basically because there is no oversight and the industry is unregulated. Anglers now lose 1000's of tons into the environment each year through the insane practice of 'dumping' their leads when playing a fish resulting in further damage to the planet - one noted scientist, Vernon Thomas, stated this was now at a level where it should be classed as an environmental time bomb waiting to explode. You can no longer go in to a toy shop and buy lead soldiers due to their toxicity but you can go into any tackle shop and purchase lead angling weights. Lead has been removed from everything, from paint through to petrol but not from angling and all because of flawed profiteering. This is an out of sight issue to the general public that is very real and is harming the environment of a massive but unreported scale. In our day and age protection of the environment is paramount but this huge issue is being ignored. There are plenty of non toxic alternatives but the angling trade would not find these as profitable so they continue to sell lead regardless of the damage it is doing. Common sense needs to prevail and lead angling weights need to be fully banned - the irony is that lead angling weights under 1 oz are already banned due to their toxicity! One final thought - what impact will all this lead that is now lost into the environment have within our drinking water going forward? There is so much at risk here, this is not a case of scaremongering but the highlighting of something the fishing industry promotes purely for profit regardless of the consequences - fact!