Recently published research shows that Funeral Directors are at a higher than average risk of ALS

1. 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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