AIDS Case Funeral Ban Draws Ire : Law: Lancaster business is under state investigation for refusing to take bodies of people with HIV. Industry says such policies are now rare.

A Lancaster funeral director’s refusal to handle bodies of people with AIDS, disclosed last week, has stunned AIDS activists and industry leaders, who say this once-common policy is now rare--and is a violation of federal law.

The Antelope Valley-based Catalyst Foundation for AIDS Awareness and Care said last week that it had filed a complaint with the state Board of Funeral Directors and Embalmers after learning of funeral director Jim Mumaw’s policy.

After the announcement, Mumaw confirmed that he refers AIDS-related deaths to other mortuaries because he is worried about becoming infected.

State regulators are investigating the complaint. But a federal official said Wednesday that turning away an AIDS-related death violates the 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act.

“We are investigating a handful of complaints against funeral homes which either won’t take the bodies of persons who have died of AIDS or who charge more to handle (them),” said Myron L. Marlin, a spokesman for the U.S. Department of Justice in Washington.

Funeral directors “are simply not permitted to discriminate on the basis of a disability, which in this case would be AIDS,” he said.

In the early to mid-1980s, when the disease was first widely recognized, funeral directors turning away such bodies “was a large problem,” said Bill Freeman, executive director of the National Assn. of People with AIDS. But in recent years, he said, “I haven’t heard of it frequently.”

Funeral directors noted that federal law now requires them to take precautions--such as using gloves, gowns and masks--while handling any human remains, regardless of the cause of death.

“You may not know when a person has a contagious disease,” said Andrea Waas, spokeswoman for the 15,000-member National Funeral Directors Assn.

One study, financed by funeral directors in Chicago, found that the AIDS virus can live for almost 22 hours after an infected person has died. Refrigeration of the body appeared to have no effect on how long the AIDS virus survived.

Funeral director Mumaw could not be reached for comment Wednesday. But in a prepared statement last week, he said, “I do not wish to become one of the small percentage of persons in my profession who will die from an accidental infection of the HIV virus.”

The Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta has identified three HIV infections among morgue or mortuary employees that may be work-related.

Researchers do not know how or when the virus infected the workers. Each stated that they had not received a blood transfusion, shared a needle or engaged in sex that could have exposed them to AIDS outside the workplace, said Tom Skinner, a spokesman for the centers.