Re: Management of highly radioactive human cadavers

["ALDEN N TSCHAECHE" <XAT@inel.gov>]

The real question is not how much contamination results from cremating
contaminated bodies, but how much dose those living, uncontaminated
persons get as a result of such contamination. In light of the HPS
Position Paper, if no one gets 5 rem per year or 10 rem lifetime from
such activities, there is no problem. Perhaps a small study to estimate
such doses would provide the answer. Would DOE or NRC be willing to fund
such a study? Or, perhaps the study would be more appropriately funded
by the crematory industry since it is the thing producing the doses. Or,
maybe, it should be funded by the hospital industry since it is the one
injecting patients with radioactive material. Or maybe it should be
funded by the people potentially exposed since they may be the most
concerned. Or, maybe we should not even think about it because the real
harm most probably doesn't exist anyway. Are those ideas enough to get a
new thread started? Al Tschaeche xat@inel.gov

*** Reply to note of 03/12/96 16:29
To: RADSAFE --INELMAIL RADSAFE

Subject: Re: Management of highly radioactive human cadavers
In a message dated 96-03-12 13:43:21 EST, you write:

>I'd probably suggest decay in "cold" storage for 3 months and then handle as
>any other normal cadaver.   Autopsy prior to this time should be handled the
>same as one would working on a highly contaminated injured individual with
>all
>waste generated also being held for decay.
>
>What says you? .....

I had to say something in support of this, since everyone else reacting seems
to be so sensitive about this death thing.  "Cold storage" has been used as
an option, in at least one case of which I am aware,  involving diagnostic
quantities of gallium-67, and even then the crematory oven was demonstrably
contaminated, and the tools used contaminated their second oven.  The
contamination I'm sure would have been much worse had the body been cremated
right away, instead of after 10 half-lives.

Another situation of which I am aware involved the death of a patient who had
been treated with P-32, and this time the body was cremated within less than
two half-lives of the treatment.  Not only was the crematory oven (the
retort) and this patient's ashes highly contaminated (180 mr/hr with the beta
shield removed on an Ion Chamber), but so were the remains of the next body
cremated in the same oven.  The remains of each were placed in marble urns -
a great shielding material for the beta (and the urns were buried), but what
if it had been a material likely to throw off alot of  Bremstrahllung (and
taken home by the family)?

The material clearly is not all "going up the stack," so I think the
community has some questions to answer.  What level of contamination is
"safe" in a crematory oven?  What training and/or information should the
crematory workers have?  (In one of the places I visited, the worker smoked
and made coffee on a counter next to the "hood" containing the grinder they
use for the remains.)

Maybe only a low level of concern is warranted, however I don't think that
the current guidance reflects reality, and that should be researched to
determine whether there is or is not a problem.

Just my opinion.

Barbara L. Hamrick
BLHamrick@aol.com