Dr. Philip McMillan, John McMillan

In 2022 a British funeral director with decades of experience, found himself facing an unprecedented challenge in his embalming practice. For about 18 months, he had been grappling with a phenomenon that left him and his team perplexed. The routine process of embalming, which typically involved pumping formaldehyde through the carotid artery to preserve the deceased, had become increasingly difficult.

His embalmer had been consistently reporting troubles in getting embalming fluid to circulate properly through the body. Initially, they suspected a mechanical issue with the pump, but upon closer inspection, they discovered something far more unsettling. When attempting to clear what was thought was a blockage, the funeral director and his embalmer extracted a strange, elastic substance from the artery. To their astonishment, it strung out in one piece, as a long, white, fibrous structure that had the look and feel of calamari.

Unusual Clots Observed by Embalmers

In November 2021, Richard Hirschman, a professional embalmer in the United States, began documenting the frequency of large, white, fibrous clot structures he was observing in the bodies he was embalming. Concerned about his findings, he reached out to an organization to share photographs of what he was seeing, but the response was underwhelming. In January 2022, a serendipitous encounter occurred when Dr. Teresa Long, a DOD whistleblower discussing DMED data, attended a funeral at one of the funeral homes Hirschman worked for. The funeral director, aware of her interest in the mysterious clots, encouraged Dr. Long to speak with Hirschman. Upon seeing images of the clots, Dr. Long was highly alarmed and suggested that these findings might explain the unusual health issues observed in the military. Dr. Long then passed Hirschman’s information to Dr. Jane Ruby, an alternative news media personality, who was willing to interview him and bring his observations to the public’s attention. Subsequently, Richard Hirschman was invited to participate in the 2022 documentary “Died Suddenly,” where he offered visual evidence and collected testimonies from several other embalmers who also began seeing mysterious clots in many bodies following the vaccine rollout.

Ben Schmidt, a funeral director and embalmer with a bachelor’s degree in natural science wrote a detailed critique in November, 2022. Mr. Schmidt explained that clots can easily form after death, as the liquid and solid parts of blood separate and as formaldehyde and calcium-containing water used in the embalming process catalyze clotting. Refrigeration might also be to blame, he argued, especially when a rapid influx of bodies necessitates longer stays in the cooler as embalmers work through the backlog.

Anatomical pathology specialist Irene Sansano noted that the clots shown by Hirschman do not look different from the ones pathologists regularly see in autopsies at the hospital. “To know if there really was an uptick in clots seen during embalming, we can’t rely on a scattering of anecdotes. We would need a database to monitor trends, and this database does not exist.”

Creation of a Database and Survey Results

Enter Thomas Haviland, a retired US Air Force data analyst and electrical engineer who did exactly that, and created a database. Haviland surveyed hundreds of embalmers across the United States between 2022 and 2023, and found that approximately 70% of respondents reported observing these unusual clots. The clots were described as white, fibrous, and rubbery in texture, distinctly different from typical post-mortem blood clots. Haviland’s research indicates that embalmers began noticing these structures more frequently starting in 2021, with some reporting their presence in up to 50% of the bodies they process.

Professor Resia Pretorius, a researcher from South Africa, has been studying the formation of microclots in relation to COVID-19 and long COVID. Her work suggests that these microclots may be composed of amyloid fibrin structures, which are more resistant to breakdown than typical blood clots. Pretorius explains, “The issue that I don’t, that’s quite scary for me and is actually very interesting is the structures of the significant macroclots that are pulled out from healthy individuals…. And I think entrapped in these macroclots are a lot of these microclots that might have started with that.”

Debating the Link to COVID-19 and Vaccines

The potential link between these clots and COVID-19 or its vaccines is a subject of ongoing debate and research. While some embalmers and researchers have noted a temporal association with the rollout of COVID-19 vaccines, it is important to note that correlation does not imply causation. Dr. Philip McMillan, a researcher from the U.K., stresses the need for thorough scientific investigation: “We still don’t know if it’s necessarily connected. And that’s part of the reason why the science still has to be done.”

In addition to the large fibrous clots, embalmers have also reported an increase in what they describe as “microclotting,” evidenced by the appearance of coffee ground-like or dirty blood during the embalming process. Haviland’s 2023 survey found that 79% of embalmers observed this phenomenon, with some reporting its presence in up to 80% of the bodies they process. This is a significant increase from pre-2020 levels, where such observations were rare.

Dr. Robin Rose, a gastroenterologist and internal medicine specialist, has been studying microclots in patients with long COVID. She notes, “I don’t really mean to sound like an alarmist, but I will say from a clinical perspective, it’s extremely alarming to see what we’re seeing in our clinic and (in) patients that don’t have long haul (syndrome) or COVID. And the biochemical markers, the inflammatory barring markers are completely abnormal.”

Ongoing Research and Implications

The medical community is grappling with how to approach this issue. Some researchers suggest that these clots could be related to the body’s inflammatory response to COVID-19 or other factors. Others are investigating potential connections to the spike protein, whether from the virus itself or from vaccines.

The implications of these findings could be significant for understanding and treating various conditions, including long COVID and other post-viral syndromes. However, more research is needed to definitively establish the nature, causes, and potential health impacts of these unusual clots.

As the scientific community continues to investigate this phenomenon, there are calls for increased transparency and collaboration. Dr. McMillan emphasizes the importance of open scientific inquiry: “At the end of the day, everybody has to take responsibility for their voice… but it’s not just the doctors and the scientists and the politicians who have a voice. Everybody has a voice and it is incumbent on everybody to ask questions.”