Corpses needed for Channel 4 show

13 April 2012

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.

Channel 4 Director of Television, Kevin Lygo, said at the winter launch today: "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."

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.

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 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.

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