The End of the Line For Formaldehyde

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By Amy Cunningham, Editor of The Inspired Funeral

I used to associate the National Funeral Director’s Association (NFDA) with Brooks-Brothers-clad lobbyists who never questioned the utility of highly toxic embalming fluids. So imagine my delight last week–it really felt like Christmas–when I opened my May 2016 copy of “The Director” magazine (the NFDA’s glossy trade journal) and found a remarkable article called “Excising a Health Risk: The time to look into formaldehyde-free products is now” by the NDFA’s environmental compliance counsel of twenty-five years, Carol Lynn Green.

Among Green’s talking points:

1. “Formaldehyde-free embalming products serve an important risk-reduction function in embalming.”

2. “OSHA will change how it limits formaldehyde exposure, setting more stringent standards and/or imposing restrictive work practices.”

3. “Today’s memorialization practices, the shorter period between death and memorialization, and consumer interest in green products and practices, create a niche market for formaldehyde-free embalming products.”

My translation: just as we wisely stopped using poisonous arsenic to embalm in the decades after the Civil War, so too we should seek alternatives (in both funeral practice and products) to formaldehyde-reliant end-of-life rituals. Might we learn something from traditions that eschew chemically preserved corpses? After all, it’s been five years since the U.S Department of Health and Human Services labeled formaldehyde a human carcinogen potentially dangerous to the people working around it.

Lest you suspect from my tone that I am “anti-funeral industry,” allow me to recount a conversation I had some years ago, when I was a mortuary school graduate in search of the required year-long residency. I quickly realized I was interviewing in the wrong funeral establishment when my prospective boss stated that all his residents spent the first three months in full-day, five-day-a-week, embalming practice. Line them up, and move them out! But as we continued to chat about the merits of strong fluids and wax reconstruction, he told me a moving story that illustrated the sacrifices he personally was willing to make. He described the day he collected from the Kings County Medical Examiner’s office the body of a heroic police officer, who’d been shot and killed in the line of duty, and written up in all the newspapers.

“I wanted to make this great cop look good again so badly,” he said with real sincerity. “that I managed the whole ‘post’ by myself.”

A “post” is jargon for a post-autopsied person cut open in a Y incision from shoulder joint to mid-chest to pubis by a pathologist to determine cause of death, then stitched back together with the plastic bag of cut-up, weighed, and analyzed viscera wedged into the abdominal cavity. It takes a long time and significant chemical exposure–with the deceased’s chest cavity open like that, formaldehyde pooling–even with the best ventilation, to make such a body wholly presentable. My new buddy inhaled so much toxic formaldehyde that day to get the officer’s body right, that he was faint and dizzy as he staggered out of the prep room, and had to be supported just outside the door frame by two employees.

This story touched me deeply. The sense of civic responsibility, this man’s devotion to making the funeral right, his willingness to endure a horrendous experience–all of that stirred me. But his resignation regarding “the hit” he had to take, inhaling a chemical in a quantity that could lead to health consequences (stats show increased risk for myeloid leukemia and ALS in career embalming room workers) still puzzles me. Some embalmers are just that selfless. But others aren’t in a dialogue with their bodies. They still smoke cigarettes. One I know used to work in asbestos. All, of course, need the job, otherwise, who’d do it?

So I was impressed, but perplexed by my prospective employer’s belief that formaldehyde toxicity can’t be avoided in the funeral biz, and that other employees should suffer as much as he has suffered. My heart goes out to this man’s wife and family. And to his staff, quite frankly.

The upshot of Carol Lynn Green’s article is not to halt embalming entirely for those funeral consumers who expect it, know what it is, and still want it. It’s to find methods and chemicals that won’t threaten the health of dutiful funeral workers, and get funeral home owners curious about what they might add to their menu of funeral options. Funeral firms must get ready for Baby Boom customers who feel that death can be managed naturally with no toxic chemicals at all (look at those long lines at Whole Foods, people). When strong preservative is required–due to air travel, warm climates, delays in service scheduling–funeral directors will still use formaldehyde. One might hope that, now, with the NFDA’s straight forward encouragement,  funeral directors will embrace formaldehyde-free fluids and stop tarnishing their legacy in the effort to celebrate someone else’s.

I wrote Carol Lynn Green right away and told her she was a “change agent.” She certainly is courageous.

I’m reminded of a moment I savored years ago when my younger son Gordon shouted across a grocery store aisle: “Hey Mom, it says here on this package: ‘no dyes and no artificial preservatives!’ Your team is winning!”

Why January is the month you’re most likely to die: Factors like the chronic chill and genetics cause the year's highest death tolls

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What is it with deaths this January? Before we got halfway through the month, the world had lost a pantheon of cultural icons - musician David Bowie, actor Alan Rickman, and the DJ and Top Of The Pops presenter Ed ‘Stewpot’ Stewart.

These sad losses reflect a little known fact: that January is the peak time of the year for deaths. This is for a multitude of reasons - some quite straightforward, such as the cold weather, others more complex, such as our genes.

Quirks of the human psyche play a crucial part as well. January famously includes the ‘most depressing day of the year’ - the third Monday of the month - identified by Welsh psychologist Dr Cliff Arnall in 2005.

This was based on a formula said to weigh factors such as weather, debt, the time elapsed since Christmas and failed New Year’s resolutions. By applying a mathematical ‘sadness’ algorithm to these factors, yesterday was ‘Blue Monday’, as it’s come to be known.

Scientifically, this calculation may be bunkum, but the fact that so many are willing to believe it indicates the idea has strong emotional traction. Indeed, the Samaritans says that January is a peak time for calls from people feeling emotionally distressed and desperate.

Psychologists have a name for this potentially lethal post-festive plummet in morale: the ‘broken promise effect’.

People in low mood in the early winter hang on to the hope that Christmas and New Year will bring better things.

December sees a drop in the suicide rate, which experts call the ‘postponing effect’; the rate ‘rebounds’ in January, with an above average rise.

Another factor may be that people who are seriously ill often hang on to life at Christmas and New Year, for a final chance to see loved ones and enjoy the emotional warmth of the season.

Indeed, a study in 1973 by sociologists at the State University of New York found a similar peak in survival rates around people’s birthdays.

It also reported that seriously ill Jewish people may ‘postpone’ their deaths until after important religious dates such as Yom Kippur - the Day of Atonement.The report, published in the American Social Review, examined the death dates of more than 1,300 people. 

The cold weather, too, is an obvious factor - and last year proved to be particularly grim. In January 2015, the death rate peaked at more than 30 per cent above the average for that month over the previous ten years.

More than 12,500 more people passed away in those four weeks than usual. Public Health England (PHE) put it down to the weather, with the ‘statistically significant excess’ in deaths coinciding, it said, with serious cold snaps.

The sad fact is that Britain is comparatively very poor at protecting itself against the killer chill. 

Figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) reveal countries in Scandinavia and northern Europe that endure bitterly cold winters have lower excess winter mortality than Britain.

A 2013 ONS report noted that people in those countries take better precautions against the cold, and their homes are better insulated. 

Perhaps surprisingly, flu is not the great January killer. Most of the deaths are linked to respiratory and circulatory diseases brought on by the body being severely stressed by chronic chill.

As Tim Ellis, chief executive of the National Records of Scotland, explains: ‘Very few [of the additional deaths in winter] are caused by hypothermia and only a small proportion by influenza.

‘Most are from respiratory and circulatory diseases, such as pneumonia, coronary heart disease and stroke.’

There are also genetic reasons for such deaths.

In cold weather, our immune systems rev up to resist the bugs that thrive when people huddle together in stuffy rooms, shops, trains and buses. When our immune systems are highly active, they are also more likely to go awry.

But inflammation can be lethal. Chronic inflammation causes damage throughout the body and plays a significant role in heart disease, type 1 diabetes and arthritis.Our immune genes control our immune cells and trigger inflammation - the body’s way of fighting off infection by releasing chemicals that cause swelling as a defence against invaders.

‘We see a rise in new cases of type 1 diabetes in January,’ says John Todd, a professor of medical genetics at Cambridge University who studies seasonal gene changes. ‘Heart disease is also much worse in the winter months.’

Figures from the British Heart Foundation prove that there are significantly more deaths from coronary heart disease during January. Further- more, a 2012 study by Harvard university shows that levels of bad cholesterol and triglycerides (fats in the blood linked to heart disease) peak in January, and are lowest in summer.

The reason for this is not yet clear.

Once we have made it through January, though, we can all look forward to the happy months of July, August and September.

Across Britain, these have the lowest death rates, according to ONS figures between 1959 and 2012.

After that, the death rate begins to rise again in October, then begins a steep ascent to its winter heights at the start of November.

It seems that the English novelist Anthony Trollope had it right back in 1858, when he wrote in his novel, Dr Thorne: ‘Let no man boast himself that he has got through the perils of winter till at least the seventh of May.’

In the meantime, enjoy the rest of January. If you can.

Dead and Alive Project with Klaus Bo

Greenland 

In Upernavik, the soil is too hard to bury the dead. Instead, they are laid to rest in concrete and stone-covered coffins above ground. Often, these coffins face the ocean, so that dead sealers can watch the place they once worked. via

Photographer, Klaus Bo, has set forth a project documenting the different cultural experiences surrounding death. The project is called “Dead and Alive Project.”

“In some places – like Denmark – death is taboo, in other places death and the deceased are natural parts of the life of the living. The background for this project is the desire to show how death rituals often reflect life. With its selection of different death and burial rituals, visitors to the final exhibition will gain insight into how much any given culture’s values, hopes and dreams are reflected in their thoughts about death and life after death, and how differently we treat our dead from culture to culture.”

Klaus has travelled far and wide to document different death traditions. Below are just a few of the photos that will be featured in the April issue of National Geographic with small insights to their stories:

Ghana

Church members carry Nene Nomo’s body to his grave. His coffin pays homage to his profession, chicken farming. via

Nepal

Ramri Tamang’s body is cremated on the outskirts of the village, surrounded by family members. According to their Buddhist beliefs, it is important to destroy the body so that the spirit cannot return to it. via

India

Bodies are cremated at Manikarnika Ghat, Varanasi’s main cremation grounds. More than 150 bodies are cremated there every day, and its frequent use has caused deforestation in the area. via

Madagascar

Family members dance with and celebrate their ancestor during a Famadihana. via

Haiti

Women in Port-au-Prince chant to lure the spirit of a deceased mambo, or Vodou priestess, into a kalabasa squash (seen floating in a bowl in the center). Afterward, they will release the spirit at a nearby road junction. via

To read more on the project, go to the project website HERE

To view the feature on National Geographic, click HERE

Decomposing Bodies Power Ethereal Cemetery Lanterns

What happens to you after death? We expect that our loved ones will grieve, someone will say consoling words to our family and friends, and perhaps there will be a party with fond toasts to our memory. But what becomes of our remains? In most cases, bodies are either embalmed or cremated, buried or scattered in some meaningful location. But the Centre for Death and Society at England’s University of Bath held a competition in hopes of reimagining the future cemetery. They selected as their winner ‘Sylvan Constellation,’ a proposal that combines grieving with the latest in green technology to create a sustainable, peaceful space.

Sylvan Constellation envisions the cemetery as a series of woodland paths through clusters of ‘memorial vessels,’ some at the level of the path and some suspended on columns overhead. The vessels contain remains and microbial fuel cells that hasten decomposition. As the body breaks down, its energy is converted into electricity that causes the vessel to glow, lighting the nearby paths, creating beautiful surroundings while avoiding the environmental impacts of embalming or cremation. Centre director Dr. John Troyer said in a press release, “The proposal captured the Future Cemetery design competition’s larger themes by presenting a mix of different sustainable technologies.”

The proposal is the work of Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation. GSAPP will receive a prize of five thousand pounds and a month’s residency in Bath to research the nearby Arnos Vale Cemetery, where Sylvan Constellation will be constructed. GSAPP will collaborate with Arnos Vale and the Centre to bring the project to fruition. “By working together on this project, collaborators will establish networks for longer-term projects involving innovative, sustainable design around end-of-life planning,” said Troyer.

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Do you know your community?

As a business owner, do you know your community? Most people would probably answer yes to that question, but very often the way we perceive everything around isn't based on actual data or facts but our own personal observations. While instincts and personal experience can certainly be valuable, they don’t provide all of the information necessary to make strategic and tactical decisions that can result in long term success for your business. 

First step is pulling up the data in your community to get a better idea of what you are working with. This type of market research can reveal information about trends that may impact the future of your business. This research can bring to light opportunities and potential challenges, and can help you re-evaluate your marketing, products, and service. Having a strong understanding of your community's demographics is important, and you can learn more right away just by pulling up these stats:

• Total population
• Gender mix
• Ethnicity
• Income
• Education
• Marital status
• Age distribution, with an emphasis on age 65+

These data points help analysts determine a great deal about the future of a community. Here are some examples of how understanding the characteristics of your community’s residents can impact your firm:

Total population Examining this data can provide insights on population trends, such as whether or not your community is growing. You’ll also have the opportunity to plan for what this data could mean for your long-term business viability. It’s great for a community to experience growth, but you’ll need to be prepared to expand your business (staff, facilities, etc.) in order to meet demand. If the data indicates a trend of population decline, what actions would you take?

Ethnicity The United States is experiencing notable shifts in ethnic makeup. If the population is expected to change in your area, how will you alter or supplement your firm’s services to meet the needs of your client families? Consider how you and your staff can acquire the knowledge and skills required to best meet your customers’ needs.

Income It’s important to gather data about income, as this can drive your service offering and pricing decisions. You’ll also want to measure and assess the expected income trends for your area. Of course, income is just one of the factors that may affect your pricing model. Don’t forget that “price shoppers” still want to receive high value for their money.

Age distribution Research indicates that people ages 65+ are receptive to the benefits of advance funeral planning. People in this group may be more emotionally and rationally prepared to prearrange their funerals. Is the number of people in this age group expected to grow or decline for your community?

When you know your community you'll have the base you need to improve your services and be better equipped to serve your families, which will only help your business's long term success!

Céline Dion's Husband Planned Funeral Before His Death to Ease Her Burden

It has been a rough few weeks in the media hearing about the loss of David Bowie, Alan Rickman, and Celine Dion's husband, and her older brother just a few days later; unfortunately all due to cancer.

It was recently reported that Dion's husband hoped to make the difficult situation of his being ill a little easier for his wife, and had pre-planned his funeral. Dion's longtime stylist and friend Annie Horth said that because of this, Dion is "going through [this] peacefully and with control."Angélil wanted to have his funeral at Notre-Dame Basilica, where he and Dion wed more than two decades ago. 

We have discussed pre-planning on the blog before, but for a refresher, Preneed life insurance is an insurance policy whose benefits cover the cost of the predetermined expenses of a funeral, cremation or burial. The expenses typically include standard funeral home services, funeral merchandise, church services and even burial services and merchandise. The purpose of preneed life insurance is to set aside funds for your funeral, before the need arises, thereby protecting your loved ones and your financial assets.

So why should you prepay and plan ahead for your funeral? Proper planning for your final wishes is more than wise, it is a thoughtful decision to help your family during a difficult time of loss. But it doesn't just benefit the loved ones you leave behind, you can actually save money by prepaying and planning with funeral homes, by locking down prices for services and products. Preneed life insurance is tied directly to the costs of a prearranged funeral or cremation. All of the services and merchandise that you select may be completely covered by your insurance if your funeral home has guaranteed the price of your funeral.Second, there may be no tax liability on the death benefit to your surviving family members. And the benefit of your preneed life insurance policy may be payable immediately to the funeral home at the time of your death.

If you want to learn more about pre-planning your funeral, you can start HERE.

Cremation Tournament and Suicides

We recently posted about the rise of cremation rates in the United States. Earlier this week the Chinese government hosted an unusual competition. More than 50 of the country's best battled it out to be crowned the country's top cremator.

It was the first ever national contest for cremation workers, but its very existence cuts to the heart of Chinese ideas about death, land use and a desire to instill national pride in a stigmatized vocation. In a country where 10 million people die annually, disposing of bodies is a political and practical issue. BBC covered the story.

Cremation is more common in China than in the U.S. A majority of Chinese, just over 50 percent, are cremated after death and that number is going up. This is largely for practical reasons. Roughly 10,000,000 people die in China annually, meaning graveyards would take up vast amount of land the government wishes to use for agricultural projects. Traditional burial has also fallen out of favor in China for the same reason it has in the U.S. With more people living in cities, it’s impractical and seemingly purposeless for families to bury their dead in fields far from their apartments. With that said, in China, cremation is more it’s associated with communism. Under Mao Tse-Tung, cremation was periodically and locally mandated. For many Buddhists, who traditionally burn bodies, this didn’t represent a religious problem, but ancestor worship, a cultural holdover from Confucianism, dictates that corpses should be left alone lest familial connections be broken. The Los Angeles Times recently reported that elderly people in some Chinese provinces were killing themselves because they feared cremation mandates would be enacted.

This mandate caused fear for others as well. In November 2014 two officials were arrested after they allegedly bought corpses from grave robbers to meet government cremation targets. They said they were trying to ensure government quotas on the number of cremations every month were met.

So why a cremation competition?  With unsavory views on cremation, you can imagine how those who work in the industry are viewed.The civil affairs ministry said in a statement that the competition "enhanced society's understanding of the cremation industry... and gave a strong push to the building of the cremation worker corps." A ministry spokesman said cremation workers faced strong social stigma as well as the potential health risk of handling bodies with infectious diseases.

"What they're still most worried about is society's prejudice," he told Xinhua, adding that there were cases of cremation workers hiding their occupation when filling out school forms as they were worried their children would face discrimination. This tournament was a way to hopefully boost the profile morale of cremation workers.

Not just a man's job: More women are funeral home directors

For centuries, and across many cultures, women have taken many roles in the rituals surrounding death. They have dressed bodies, cooked and cared for survivors and rendered other services.

But, until a few decades ago, few women were funeral directors in the American funeral industry. That job was one among many that were widely considered “a man’s job.”

That is changing, in both perception and reality.

Bernie Henderson, president of Woody Funeral Home and Cremation Service, grew up in a family funeral home business and has seen the change taking place around him.

Back in the 1960s and ’70s, Henderson said, “you didn’t expect to see a woman in that job. It was highly unlikely. It wasn’t thought of as work conducive to having females do it. It was like a lot of other jobs — police officers, firefighters, ministers, doctors, the military, engineers.

“Those were stereotypes that were still around, even into the ’80s,” he said, “in part, I think, because men were afraid they’d get shown up.”

But, in the past decade especially, Henderson said, women have proven “they can do anything they want to, and do it quite well.”

Henderson has first-hand experience to back that observation when it comes to his profession. At Woody — with its three Richmond-area locations — four of the company’s 10 funeral directors are women.

According to the Wisconsin-based National Funeral Directors Association, women accounted for 16.5 percent of the association’s membership as of 2014 — compared with 9.7 percent a decade earlier. The group represents 48 percent of U.S. funeral homes.

***

Ingrid Brown was the first of Woody’s female funeral directors when she started her apprenticeship there 13 years ago.

“My father made sure I got a good education,” Brown said. “I like dealing with different cultures, and I think that is a valuable asset for me.”

Women, she said, sometimes have a knack for attention to detail. “We have to check with the hospital to release the body, do the paperwork, meet with the family to make arrangements for visitation and services, book everything that needs to be booked, call the newspapers to put in the notices — there are so many details.

“And all funeral directors have to adjust to the different needs of different families.”

The other women funeral directors with Woody — Carmelita Anderson, Narita Wright and Jordan Mullins — also noted qualities that may help women in the job.

“I think some women may be a little more in touch with feelings than some men may be,” Wright said. “And some family members are able to open up to us a little more and tell us what they need.”

Anderson said she sees women approach the job “a little differently, with more sympathy and willingness to show it. Some families respond to that softer side.

“Some men are stiffer, more businesslike,” Anderson said. “Though some are also able to show emotion when it’s called for.”

Mullins, 27, has been a funeral director for five years and been with Woody since July. She said that, once in a while, women in the position of funeral director still see resistance from grieving families.

“Sometimes certain members of families aren’t expecting to see a woman,” she said. “They still default to an older man in that role — a gentleman in his 60s rather than a female in her 20s.

“But being a younger woman can be an advantage, too,” she said. “It just depends on the family.”

***

Indications are that the percentage of women funeral directors will continue to rise, according to the National Funeral Directors Association.

In 2013, the most recent figures available, 62.7 percent of mortuary science students nationally were women, up from 35 percent in 1995.

Chuck Bowman, secretary of the funeral directors association’s board and an officer in a Denver funeral firm, said that when women began to assume the role of funeral director “some people thought women wouldn’t be tough enough ... that they couldn’t deal with the sight of a dead body. Of course, that’s turned out to be a bunch of hocus-pocus.”

Bowman said women “bring a motherly quality to the job” that often is ideal for a grieving family, especially when the deceased is a child.

Lacy Whitaker, executive director of the Virginia Funeral Directors Association, said the industry “attracts the caring, nurturing side” of women. And as women continue to enter the business, she said, she expects more women will open their own funeral homes.

Henderson said the rising tide of women as funeral directors — and in administrative positions and ownership in the industry — also reflects the determination of more women to pursue the business.

“Women are coming into the industry with a strong will to be part of it,” Henderson said. “They’re not entering into it casually.

“They have a can-do attitude — they’re going to make this happen,” he said. “They’re not doing it because ‘I’m the son and my daddy wants me to do it.’ ”

 

***

Lacyn Barton fits that description. She is a licensed funeral director for Nelsen Funeral Homes and location manager for the firm at its home at 4650 S. Laburnum Ave. in eastern Henrico County.

Barton studied mortuary science at Arapahoe Community College in Denver and worked in the industry in Colorado, Washington state, Arizona, New Mexico and Pennsylvania — 14 years in all before joining the Nelsen staff last week.

“I’ve been trying to seek out opportunities to advance,” she said. “I wasn’t born into the business. ... I’ve been seeking opportunities for better, higher jobs.”

Her entry into the funeral business was an odd one. A horse-training accident resulted in a broken skull and left her unconscious. Her family was planning her funeral.

“When I did wake up, I had to learn to walk and talk again,” Barton said. “My family told me the story of what had happened.”

She no longer could ride horses because of the risk of even worse injury, she said, effectively ending her career in that field. She began contemplating what her family members had been through when they had expected her to die.

“I said, ‘I think I’ve found my calling — helping people through the difficult time of a funeral.’”

She said she expects more and more women to consider the funeral industry as a career path.

“Women will find they have the personality and skills for the job,” she said, “the compassion and empathy to make the work a meaningful personal experience. When it comes to nurturing and care-giving, women are especially adept.”

Nelsen’s two other locations are in Ashland and Williamsburg. Woody and Nelsen — both independently operated — are owned by Houston-based Service Corp. International under that company’s Dignity Memorial brand. A public company, Service Corp. International operates more than 1,500 funeral homes and 450 cemeteries.

***

Among the longer-tenured women funeral directors in the Richmond area is Nicole Blanchard, one of three women among the 12 funeral directors at Bliley’s Funeral Homes’ three full-service Richmond-area locations.

Blanchard comes from a funeral-business family. Her father ran a funeral home in Delaware. A 1990 graduate of the mortuary science program at John Tyler Community College, she made the rounds of Richmond-area funeral homes for 18 months looking for an apprenticeship — a requirement for a funeral director’s license.

“I wasn’t having any success,” she said. “A few places said, ‘We’ll call you,’ but I knew they weren’t going to.” She said she was ready to start hunting for jobs in Northern Virginia when she tried Bliley’s one more time. “And they were ready to have a woman on the staff.”

She is in her second tour at Bliley’s, her work there sandwiched around a stretch at Nelsen from 1994 to 2006.

Initially, she said, she saw some resistance to a woman as funeral director — at work and from families — but that faded and often many families appreciated her softer approach.

“Some people would say a woman can’t move a 300-pound body — well neither can a man,” she said. If a woman needs help, she gets help, just as a man does, Blanchard said.

She said she is surprised to see how many younger women are entering the industry now.

“The younger generation isn’t limiting itself,” she said. “Just as in other occupations, they’re overcoming the same arguments against doing the work.”

She said most men in the profession “care about the families they work with. They have the same warmth and sympathy that women do,” but there are times when grieving families respond to women more freely, such as when the deceased is a child or a baby.

She recalled a time during her apprenticeship that she took as a sign that she had made the right career choice.

She was driving a hearse, she said, not during a funeral procession but in ordinary traffic. “I was stopped at a light. An older gentleman pulled up beside me and motioned for me to roll down my window. I did, and he smiled and said I was the first female hearse driver he had ever seen. He said, ‘I think I like it.’ ”

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