Are the health risks to Funeral Directors too high?

A recent report on the increased risk of Amyotrophic

Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) - also known as Motor Neuron

Disease (MND) - in Funeral Directors, associates

exposure to formaldehyde as a prime cause. This risk,

along with the suspected carcinogenic effects of

formaldehyde and the general exposure to bacteria,

viruses and other chemicals, demonstrates that work as

an FD has potential health implications only now being

understood.

The report, published in the Journal of Neurology,

Neurosurgery and Psychiatry earlier this month,

showed that men in jobs with high exposure to

formaldehyde had an almost three times higher

mortality rate of ALS than in the general population.

Statistics on women did not produce the same results

but the sample size of women (99 against nearly 500

men) may have been too small for data to be useful. It

is also possible that women FDs are less likely to be

involved in the embalming process.

Previous studies looking at exposure to formaldehyde in

the workplace had found no relationship with ALS, but

this study looked particularly at the high intensity and

high probability nature of embalming – that is,

formaldehyde is certainly used and in large quantities,

rather than the lower level of exposure to

formaldehyde found in other industries.

Having said all of this, ALS remains a rare disease. The

increase in mortality still amounts only to two deaths

within the sample group. A higher likelihood of

developing ALS is still, in the scheme of things, a very

low likelihood overall. More concerning is that

formaldehyde is, once again, implicated as a damaging

to the health of users. However careful people are

when using it, the risks may be too high for some.

The full report can be read at:

http://jnnp.bmj.com/content/early/2015/06/24/jnnp-

2015-310750.full

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