A radioactive corpse contaminated an Arizona crematorium

"...An Arizona man whose radioactive corpse contaminated a local crematorium is raising concerns about how to handle the bodies of cancer patients who have had radiation treatment.

A research letter published in the Journal of the American Medical Association this week describes the 2017 case of a 69-year-old cancer patient who had undergone an outpatient infusion radiation treatment at the Mayo Clinic in Arizona..."

The full article can be read here: A radioactive corpse contaminated an Arizona crematorium

Ionactive Comment

This situation in the US or indeed the UK is probably not that common. It is interesting that the title of the article mentions 'radioactive' (which is accurate), whereas much of the rest of the story is somewhat careless with terminology. For example, 1/3 of the way down the article is this sub-heading "...No Arizona regulations on cremating bodies of radiation-exposed patients..." 'Radiation exposed' is not helpful language, especially given that many more patients will end up being cremated after exposure to radiation (e.g. radiotherapy / x-rays etc), who will carry nothing but natural expected background levels of radioactivity (K-40, C-14 etc).