Real Risks
Contamination of water supplies by unburied bodies, burial sites, or temporary storage sites may result in the spread of gastroenteritis from normal intestinal contents. According to a PAHO article on the Infectious Disease Risks From Dead Bodies Following Natural Disasters:
| “ | There is little evidence of microbiological contamination of groundwater from burial. Where dead bodies have contaminated water supplies, gastroenteritis has been the most notable problem, although communities will rarely use a water supply where they know it to be contaminated by dead bodies. Microorganisms involved in the decay process (putrefaction) are not pathogenic. | ” |
To those in close contact with the dead, such as rescue workers, there is a health risk from chronic infectious diseases which those killed may have been suffering from and which spread by direct contact, including hepatitis B and hepatitis C, HIV, enteric intestinal pathogens, tuberculosis, cholera and others.
The substances cadaverine and putrescine are produced during the decomposition of animal (including human) bodies, and both give off a foul odor. They are toxic if massive doses are ingested (2 g per kg of body weight of pure putrescine in rats, a larger dose for cadaverine), causing adverse effects. If these figures are assumed to apply to humans, a 60 kg (132 lb) person would be significantly affected by 6/37 times 120 g = 20 grams (0.7 oz) of pure putrescine. (The 6/37 is the allometric conversion for rats to humans based on body surface area.) There would be no effects at all for a tenth of that dose. By way of comparison the similar substance spermine, found in semen, is over 3 times as toxic.
Read more about this topic: Health Risks From Dead Bodies
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