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Now Your Decomposing Body Can Become a Star on the Telly

Posted on: Thursday, 4 November 2004, 06:00 CST

Channel 4 is searching for participants for a new documentary which will show their body decompose when they die.

The controversial documentary will be the first of its kind in the UK - where human decomposition has never been studied before.

The experiment will be supervised by leading scientists and will also involve the Science Museum.

Channel 4 says the results of Dust to Dust could help forensic pathologists in their investigation.

The experiment will take place in a 'secure and secret location' and would need full consent of the donor and their family.

The channel has not yet started looking for donors for the programme, which follows the controversial screening of an anatomy on Channel 4 by Gunther von Hagens. A channel spokesman said it was likely to advertise for donors in newspapers.

But John Beyer, the director of the watchdog Mediawatch UK, called the idea 'preposterous'.

He said: 'I can't believe that they have even considered doing something like that.

'I'm amazed that Channel 4, with its public service remit, wants to turn such an event into entertainment.

'It's one thing to have a scientific experiment but quite another to have it shown on TV for all of us to gawp at.' Channel 4 Director of Television, Kevin Lygo, said at the winter launch yesterday: 'This is a scientific experiment. Death isn't a subject we should avoid. It's an absolutely valid subject to examine death and see what happens to the body.

'The scientific community admits that they are woefully uninformed about what happens to the body when somebody dies.

'It is quite early days yet and we haven't got a donor.

'It has to be completely above board. There will be nothing salacious about it.'

He added: 'We don't mind controversy.'

In the US, human decomposition has been studied at the University of Tennessee but environmental factors mean that the results do not necessarily apply to the UK.

Having a better knowledge of the process would help pathologists determine the time of death and therefore assist murder investigations. Senior forensic pathologist and president of the British Association in Forensic Medicine, Dr Richard Shepherd, will coordinate a team of forensic scientists who will design and supervise the experiment.

Dr Shepherd worked on the Sarah Payne case and believes that further research on decomposed bodies would help cases like hers, in terms of establishing the time of death.

He said: 'In the UK we are hampered by the fact that the only reliable data available on human decomposition has been collected by scientists in the US.

'In my opinion, this project represents an urgently required step forward for forensic medical research in this country.

'I am also optimistic that it will provide much needed attention for the needs of forensic medicine and science and will hopefully open the door to further studies of this type in the UK.'

Channel 4's head of science and education, Simon Andreae, said: 'This is an important experiment, not just for scientists but for all of us.

'We hope that the experts can learn more about the processes involved and that the data collected by the project can help forensic pathologists in murder investigations.

'Death is something that we must all face, yet in the 21st century it is more removed from us than ever before.

'The project is partly about demystifying death and the natural processes that follow.'

In the UK, decomposition tests have only been carried out with pigs.

Channel 4 is also screening a show entitled Anatomy for Beginners, a four-part series where Gunther von Hagens performs human dissection, filmed in a lecture theatre in Germany.

Source: Birmingham Post; Birmingham (UK)

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