Re: Management of highly radioactive human cadavers

[mozley@darius.pet.upenn.edu (P. David Mozley, M.D.)]

Loesch: >I'd probably suggest decay in "cold" storage for 3 months and then
handle as >any other normal cadaver.

mozley: First, cadavers are not normal.  Regardless, autopsy can preceed
immediately.  Storage of a cadaver for 80 days before a post appears to be
an intellectually challenging proposistion.  The information you would hope
to gain in most cases would decompose during the interim.  The cost benefit
ratio of a post just does not compute after 80 days.

Humanisticly, the 80 day hiatus is psychosocially unacceptable in most
cases.  Families need to bury their dead in order to get on with the normal
process of bereivement.

Loesch:  >However, my  belief is that a deceased individual ceases to be a
patient and >now is considered either a container or just plain waste
material.

Mozley: It is a matter of law, as well as occidental culture, that a dead
person does not ever cease to be a patient.  (This is clearly not the case
in other cultures, but here, cadavers have a lot of statutory rights, and
many laws protect them.  Think about necrophillia, forced harvesting of
organs, grave robbing, etc etc.  Do we not give China grief for
transplanting organs from executed felons?)

Loesch:10CFR35.75 allows for the release of a patient when the dose rate at one
>meter is less than 5 mrem/hr and the activity in the patient is less than
>30mCi.

Mozley: I am quite confident that the law here allows us to release a dead
body at greater than 5 mrem.  My opinion is that the body no longer
constitutes a risk to the public via the excretia.  If public safety is the
issue, then there is no reason to be concerned about [I-131] radioactivity
buried six feet under the ground in an isolated park (cemetary).

TSCHAECHE>>  So, if the cremated patient is contaminated with licensed
material, are >>  the contaminated ashes still subject to regulatory
requirements as
>>  radioactive material?

Mozley: Here, they are.  Furthermore, patients who die after treatment with
[I-131] are subject to the same burial laws as any other patient, at least
in our state:

You have 48 hours to bury the body without embalming it.

Else it must be embalmed.  If embalmed, the internal organ tissue must be
stored for 10 half lives before disposal, and the embalming instruments
must be certified as "cold enough" by an RSO.  In reality, we have not been
very successful in getting morticians to agree to embalm cadavers because
of the risk that their trochars and vacum pumps will be confiscated for 80
days.  The bottom line is that all patients dying with high levels of
[I-131] are buried as quickly as possible here.  Family viewings are
necessary, but we encourage people to be brief.