How well do biocontainment and biosafety guidelines written for research facilities apply to medical examiners?

The mission of medical examiners and the procedures they use present significantly different challenges. Major differences between medical examiner and research operations with respect to biocontainment and biosafety include:

Hazards are unknown – Probably the biggest differentiator between medical examiners and researchers involves working with unknowns. In research settings, the biological challenges are almost always known or predictable. Medical examiners conduct investigations to determine potential infectious agents.

Human bodies are large – Another difference between medical examiners and most researchers is the physical size of the infectious item. Research often involves procedures that can be contained inside a biological safety cabinet. Medical examiners can’t perform required functions inside a biological safety cabinet.

Human bodies arrive contaminated – Research samples arrive clean, under controlled environments, and then infected in high containment areas. Bodies arrive infected and need to be moved into containment, vehicles delivering bodies need to be disinfected, and the disposal (or disinfection) of bodies is a challenge.

From: Current Biological Containment Design Standards for Medical Examiner Facilities by Ken Mohr and Lou Hartman