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In the 1930s, undertakers in England pushed for state registration based almost entirely on the disease myth. Parliament rejected the case as absurd, as it was known then, that bodies were not a risk, other than in very rare circumstances. It appears that undertakers are once again pressing the disease myth, in regular meetings with MPs and SMPs.. Will they reach the same conclusion as before, with all the modern science and information technology now available? Our Trust has been unable to persuade any organisations, including trading standards, trade organisations and the BBC., to expose the practice of some undertakers, who give the impression that parents must not be allowed to touch the bodies of their babies or young children, until embalming has taken place. It is a national disgrace and an offence against public decency and sensitivity.
Environmental health officers have engaged is some tyrannical practices based on this myth. Our Trust has long called for one case in particular to be fully examined in a court. EHOs like many others often conflate religious and microbiological notions of 'pollution'. The idea that body functions, especially reproductive processes, sexual activity and dead bodies are 'unclean', can be seen in a modern law, which defines certain fish as "unclean" when in breeding condition.
Mike Green, Emeritus Professor of Forensic Pathology, has long argued that exhumations, even of recently buried bodies, are not a disease risk and there is no need to wear protective clothing. However, Home Office civil servants have perpetuated the disease myth, by requiring that quicklime (calicium oxide) be sprinkled when exhumations take place. The practice was stopped in the very recent past but Home Office staff claim they do not know why!! Mike Green has said more than a decade ago, that was both pointless and as useful as holy water. However, as the use of quicklime is pointless and dangerous, had a case been tested in the courts, the powers of the Home Secretary would almost certainly have been circumscribed under modern principles of health and safety legislation, i.e. no Secretary of State can force anyone to carry out a pointless activity which is dangerous. That must be unlawful or "ultra vires".
Following the foot and mouth outbreak and BSE., the Royal Society advised the British Government, that more burials of farm animals could take place. Instead, such burials have been banned, even though there is no evidence of a problem and Parliament was informed that no research is being conducted to test the reasons for the ban.
The Environment Agency issued a report on the "potential" pollution from human burials, when any evidence of a problem should be glaringly obvious, after millions of burials over centuries. Not one problem hot spot can be identified but still the EA refers to potential problems.
So-called environmental scientists are giving science a bad name. Some practices clearly lack any scientific basis and little may change, until we are better able to cope with our own bereavements and can separate emotional, biological and microbiological phenomena, from hysteria, scaremongering, superstition and mystique, some of which seems to be deliberate for commercial gain.
Refs:
Bradfield, J. (1994) 'Green Burial - The DIY Guide To Law & Practice' out of print.
Bradfield, J. various articles in the Funeral Service Journal.
I owe and enormous debt of thanks for help given with my own research, by Mike Green (mentioned above) and Jennifer Green, a retired Consultant in Communicable Disease Control. They are authors of 'Dealing With Death - Practices & Procedures'(1992) Chapman & Hall.
See www.abtrust.info for practical evidence of what happens when the disease myth is challenged.
Competing interests:
None declared
Competing interests:
No competing interests
23 June 2004
John Bradfield
Hon. Social Worker & Adviser burials in nature reserves inter alia
ABW&W Trust, 7 Knox Road, Harrogate, North Yorkshire, HG1 3EF.
Thank you Scott Gottlieb, for putting this old fear to rest - but not
quite. While public concern for the health risks posed by dead bodies
after disasters may relate to the bodies themselves being infectious, it
may also relate to the sudden upsurgence in carrion feeding insect vectors
and rats that follow such events. Delays in finding and disposing of dead
bodies can threaten the health of survivors through ways other than
contamination of ground water. Whether these fears are justified or not,
still needs to be examined.
Who thinks bodies are a risk?
In the 1930s, undertakers in England pushed for state registration based almost entirely on the disease myth. Parliament rejected the case as absurd, as it was known then, that bodies were not a risk, other than in very rare circumstances. It appears that undertakers are once again pressing the disease myth, in regular meetings with MPs and SMPs.. Will they reach the same conclusion as before, with all the modern science and information technology now available? Our Trust has been unable to persuade any organisations, including trading standards, trade organisations and the BBC., to expose the practice of some undertakers, who give the impression that parents must not be allowed to touch the bodies of their babies or young children, until embalming has taken place. It is a national disgrace and an offence against public decency and sensitivity.
Environmental health officers have engaged is some tyrannical practices based on this myth. Our Trust has long called for one case in particular to be fully examined in a court. EHOs like many others often conflate religious and microbiological notions of 'pollution'. The idea that body functions, especially reproductive processes, sexual activity and dead bodies are 'unclean', can be seen in a modern law, which defines certain fish as "unclean" when in breeding condition.
Mike Green, Emeritus Professor of Forensic Pathology, has long argued that exhumations, even of recently buried bodies, are not a disease risk and there is no need to wear protective clothing. However, Home Office civil servants have perpetuated the disease myth, by requiring that quicklime (calicium oxide) be sprinkled when exhumations take place. The practice was stopped in the very recent past but Home Office staff claim they do not know why!! Mike Green has said more than a decade ago, that was both pointless and as useful as holy water. However, as the use of quicklime is pointless and dangerous, had a case been tested in the courts, the powers of the Home Secretary would almost certainly have been circumscribed under modern principles of health and safety legislation, i.e. no Secretary of State can force anyone to carry out a pointless activity which is dangerous. That must be unlawful or "ultra vires".
Following the foot and mouth outbreak and BSE., the Royal Society advised the British Government, that more burials of farm animals could take place. Instead, such burials have been banned, even though there is no evidence of a problem and Parliament was informed that no research is being conducted to test the reasons for the ban.
The Environment Agency issued a report on the "potential" pollution from human burials, when any evidence of a problem should be glaringly obvious, after millions of burials over centuries. Not one problem hot spot can be identified but still the EA refers to potential problems.
So-called environmental scientists are giving science a bad name. Some practices clearly lack any scientific basis and little may change, until we are better able to cope with our own bereavements and can separate emotional, biological and microbiological phenomena, from hysteria, scaremongering, superstition and mystique, some of which seems to be deliberate for commercial gain.
Refs:
Bradfield, J. (1994) 'Green Burial - The DIY Guide To Law & Practice' out of print.
Bradfield, J. various articles in the Funeral Service Journal.
I owe and enormous debt of thanks for help given with my own research, by Mike Green (mentioned above) and Jennifer Green, a retired Consultant in Communicable Disease Control. They are authors of 'Dealing With Death - Practices & Procedures'(1992) Chapman & Hall.
See www.abtrust.info for practical evidence of what happens when the disease myth is challenged.
Competing interests:
None declared
Competing interests: No competing interests