Corpses to appear on Cigarette Packages-Your Funeral Guy

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Corpses and Cadavers are to appear on Cigarette packaging. There will also pictures of black, diseased lungs. This is very graphic stuff. This is all required by law.

Altria Group Inc., Reynolds American Inc. and other cigarette sellers in the U.S. must place graphic images such as corpses and diseased lungs on the warning labels of packages and in advertisements to highlight smoking risks.

As part of the biggest tobacco marketing rules change in a quarter century, nine labels will convey the health effects, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said today. The warnings, required under a law passed last year, are an important step toward reducing cigarette-related illnesses, FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg said at a news conference.

via www.bloomberg.com

Funeral Industry Funeral News Funeral Blog by Your Funeral Guy

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Green cremation, Alkaline Hydrolysis, Resomation, receives unjust Criticism-yourfuneralguy

There has been some negative press of late on alkaline hydrolysis and  the new green cremation, procedure known as resomation. It appears to me that some in the press have not taken the time to understand the process. By not investigating the process and simply attacking the aesthetics involved, a green innovation is receiving unjust criticism.

Here is one recent Headline:

“Belgium’s plan to wash its dead down the drain: Bodies would be dissolved in caustic solution… and flushed into the sewer

It could hardly be said to be the most dignified of send-offs.

Undertakers in Belgium plan to eschew traditional burials and cremations and start dissolving corpses instead.

The move is intended to tackle a lack of burial space and environmental concerns as 573lbs of carbon dioxide are released by each cremated corpse.

via www.dailymail.co.uk

Many of the comments on this article cried Solyent Green is people, an expected response given the 1970 movie “Fahrenheit 451″  Here is Your Funeral Guys comment at the site.

“The soylent green response to this process is quite expected. The Fluid does not half to go down the drain, although the fluid is safe if not welcome in sewage treatment plants. No one eats the remains, in this process. It is eco friendly, consumer friendly, inexpensive and will help the funeral industry around the world deal with their current crisis of lack of funds and burial land.”via www.dailymail.co.uk

In fact green cremation-resomation- is  the most green alternative for disposition available in the world today.

Another negative press report is presented here.

Talk about not giving a proper burial to a beloved one, the Belgium government plans to wash its dead bodies down drains as the corpses would be dissolved in a caustic solution and then flushed into the sewer.

via www.dallasblog.com

The media needs to fully investigate before presenting the negative side of a new innovation. The publics perception will change once the aesthetics are perceived correctly, the cost benefit  to the family is presented as well as the benefits to the earth.

Funeral Industry|Funeral News| Funeral Blog  by yourfuneralguy

Haiti Earthquake:Roads Blocked by corpses protesting lack of Help-YourFuneralGuy

The horror continues in The Haiti Earthquake.  Roads are being blocked by corpses for lack of aid. The Port- Au-Prince morgue has 1500 bodies piled up outside. The AP has released photos showing bodies piled in the street and people trying to cope with the stench of death.

The Haiti Eathquake Horror grows worse.

Logistical difficulties are hampering international Haitian relief efforts relief efforts as planes arrive at the Port-Au-Prince airport faster than they could be unloaded.

Desperate Haitians blocked streets with corpses in one part of Port-au-Prince to demand quicker relief efforts following Tuesday’s catastrophic quake, which flattened buildings and killed tens of thousands, leaving countless others homeless.

Bodies lay all around the hilly city, and people covered their noses with cloth to block the stench of death.

Corpses were piled on pickup trucks and delivered to the General Hospital in Port-au-Prince, where hospital director Guy LaRoche estimated the bodies piled outside the morgue numbered 1,500.

via www.dailymail.co.uk

Armed Gangs with machetes are running throughout Port Au Prince, there is a lack of running water and a shortage of safe drinking water. A  fear of disease is spreading which which could make the death toll worse.

Funeral Industry|Funeral News|Funeral blog by Your Funeral Guy.

Photo from flickr under the creative commons license from

giladlotan’s photostream

Dead and Defiled Veteran in Garage Months|at SCI Va.Site -yourfuneralguy

Entrance to National Memorial Park -Grounds where National Funeral Home and SCI Central Embalming facility are located.(7400 Lee Highway Falls Church, VA)

The County prosecutor in Fairfax County,VA is now involved National Funeral Home’s (SCI)  Scandal. If what is stated as true it is very close to a felony. It all points to criminal activity under Virginia Law and the Prosecutor will decided if charges will be brought.

Service Corporation International, SCI is the world’s largest funeral corporation headquartered in Houston, Texas.

This is the scenario as presented by the The Washington Post Article and Video.April 5th, 2009

“The body of Maj. Richard Morgan was left from November to February in a light oak coffin in the garage at SCI’s central care facility, located in the same building as National Funeral Home, according to current and former employees who saw the coffin and the body inside.”

First I would say if I was a funeral director, embalmer or employee at that site I would have been placing  the Major back in the cooler continuously. Before taking pictures I would have had a log of dates and times that Major Richard  Morgan went back in the cooler. That is how “Your Funeral Guy” would have handled his obligations to the major. I would not care if it was insubordination. This is fact, I was not there.

If what is stated is true it appears the Major was defiled. It is the County prosecutors job to figure out how to proceed. I did say “Not my Job” but I will be  watching with great interest. I used to work at several funeral homes in Fairfax, County.

More from the Washington Post on April 7th:

Richard Morgan Jr., a Harrisonburg, Va., criminal defense attorney……said his father’s body was “defiled” because it was left to rot on a garage rack, a possible felony under a Virginia law regulating the treatment of corpses….an SCI official contacted him over the weekend and denied the allegations” and Morgan said the SCI official agreed to refund

National Funeral Home is a short drive from the Nations Capitol

the $14,111.65 the family paid for funeral services.

If the Va attorney, the deceased son, accepts the Service Corporation  refund for the funeral services he may fore go a civil complaint.

Matthew Sargent at Artco Casket Company reminded everyone that this is not the norm in the funeral industry. This event is the exception not the rule for Northern Virginia Funeral Homes and Funeral Homes across the USA.

It should be noted that the actions of  SCI National Funeral Home’s central embalming facility are unacceptable in the funeral profession. This embalming scandal is of historic proportion for the Funeral Profession  in America.

Funeral Industry| Funeral blog byYour Funeral Guy. Funeral Director Commonwealth of Virginia.

National Memorial Park Entrance Pic from flickr

M.V. Jantzen’s photostream

service corporation international