The National Cancer Institute has confirmed what most Funeral directors are informally aware of -that funeral directors and embalmers are at high risk for cancer: specifically brain cancer and myeloid leukemia
High exposure to formaldehyde means cancer in your life.
Here is a summary from Oxford Journals
CONTEXT AND CAVEATS
Prior knowledge
More deaths than expected among anatomists, pathologists, and funeral industry workers have been attributed to lymphohematopoietic malignancies, in particular myeloid leukemia, and brain cancer. Individuals in these fields may have worked with formaldehyde.
Study design
In a case–control study in a cohort of deceased funeral industry workers, those who died from lymphohematopoietic malignancies and brain tumors were compared with control subjects. Lifetime work practices and exposures to formaldehyde were obtained by interviews with next of kin and coworkers.
Contribution
The number of years of embalming practice and related formaldehyde exposures in the funeral industry was associated with statistically significantly increased mortality from myeloid leukemia. No associations were observed with other lymphohematopoietic malignancies. Associations with brain cancer were unclear.
Implications
Further studies are warranted to investigate the risk of leukemia in relation to specific embalming practices and exposures and to investigate this risk in other groups of professionals who are exposed to formaldehyde and have an increased risk of leukemia (ie, anatomists and pathologists).
Limitations
Exposures to formaldehyde were obtained from interviews with next of kin and coworkers. There were relatively few deaths from myeloid leukemia among case subjects. There was a considerable amount of missing data that required imputation for analyses.
From the Editors.
This is certainly a very high funeral cost, cancer
