Issues Related to the Decontamination of Chemically Contaminated Human Remains.

This report, based on a search of the available literature, addressed issues specific to problems of decontamination of chemically contaminated human remains. Specific areas of concern included 1 identification of a worst case situation 2 determining if hypochlorite is the best decontaminant available 3 determining the optimum pH for hypochlorate use as a decontaminant 4 determining an optimum concentration of hypochlorite 5 determining whether there is benefit in using the sodium salt over the calcium salt of hypochlorite 6 determinationidentification of the agents most difficult to decontaminate 7 estimation of amount of agent to which remains would be exposed 8 estimation of how much, if any, agent could be found in decontaminated remains that might be hazardous to handlers of the remains subsequent to decontamination and 9 determining if there are cosmetic effects produced by the decontamination process. Because the Army was proceeding to write doctrine for a specific decontamination procedure, the questions addressed in this report were focused to those issues that were of prime importance to near-term development of a field system for decontamination of chemically contaminated human remains so that the remains could be released to the family of the deceased.