Regulations
Last week a jury was seated and opening statements were begun in the criminal trial of Arthur Rathburn, age 64, of Grosse Pointe Park, Michigan. Rathburn is accused of fraudulently misrepresenting his unusual product, that of parts of bodies that had been donated for research. According to an article on the case that you can…
Yesterday I read of two cases where funeral homes faced examiners because of problems at their mortuaries and in both cases both funeral homes have had their licenses revoked for a period of time from the respective examining boards. While the funeral homes may have the chance to plead their case and appeal, much of…
Today we will bring you some excerpts from the second part in Reuters five-part series entitled “The Body Trade: Cashing in on the Donated Dead”. As we mentioned in our last article on the subject this is an explosive series that found, what they believe, to be a lot of problems with the business of…
Many of you in the death care industry were probably sideswiped yesterday when Reuters first part in its investigative series on what it terms “The Body Trade” was released. This expose – which Reuters tell us will be a five-part series – will tell of the underworld nature of what happens, in some instances, with bodies…
Yesterday I was active in our Minnesota Funeral Director’s Association (MFDA) Fall Continuing Education meetings. The MFDA puts these on over about 10 days in the fall in different locations in an effort to tell all death care professionals what is going on in the industry. It is always a great source to go to,…
The State of West Virginia Health and Human Resources Department requires all suspected drug overdose deaths to be transported to the Chief Medical Examiner’s Office at the state morgue, autopsied, and a toxicology report must be made in an attempt to pinpoint what exactly caused the death. After this is done the State then has…
Members of the West Virginia’s Performance Evaluation and Research Division (PERD) were called on to evaluate why funeral director Chad Harding was allowed to maintain his license while being investigated and was found to have violated the West Virginia Consumer Credit and Protection Act and the West Virginia Preneed Funeral Contracts Act along with committing…
