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A Hidden Fact. Death Certificates Shouldn’t Lie, Correct?
The cause of a death can provide valuable information to family, genealogists, and healthcare researchers, but tampering and pressure can result in incorrect data. FEMA offers burial assistance if Covid-19 on certificate.
Remember the words “there are only two things you have to do: die and pay taxes?” Too many don’t pay taxes, but no one gets away from the first. But it is here that families and even professional groups may be interfering with the legal obligation of correctly completing a death certificate.
During my years in graduate school, I decided to write a term paper on suicide in New York City. I suppose my interest was based on Emile Durkheim’s book and one other by Schneidman and Faberow I’d seen.
The data was readily available online, and it was a topic I believed would be useful for my course fulfillment. I never suspected that the data would be skewed not only by local requirements but professional societies and life insurance. Eye-opening time for me, and now it is occurring again, but not as before.
One of the roadblocks I hit while researching my paper was found in professional journals that listed physician…