By AMY BETH GRAVES Associated Press Writer 07/08/98

     There has been cremation jewelry and designer caskets with themes that included even golf - a ``Fairway to Heaven'' motif.Now funeral homes are beginning to collect DNA samples from the dead - for a fee - to preserve a genetic record that could provide medical information.

     While experts are divided on the usefulness of the data, some think the service will be a strong seller for the nation's 21,000 funeral homes.``I imagine every funeral home will have this service in the future,'' said Terry Travis, funeral director of Riddle Funeral Home in Vermilion, about 30 miles west of Cleveland.

     Travis signed up earlier this month for the service offered by Cincinnati-based DNA Analysis Inc. For $350, he will snip a bit of hair, draw some blood and run a swab inside a deceased person's mouth to get a DNA sample.The samples are packaged in sterile kits and sent to a lab where molecular biologist Paul Harding extracts the DNA. He then sends the family a confidential genetic fingerprint of the deceased.The company stores the DNA samples for 25 years at minus 80 degrees, in case there is a need for analysis. Only next-of-kin can have the samples tested, for an extra fee.

     GeneLink Inc. has been offering a similar service since 1996 through hundreds of funeral homes and cemeteries in 20 states, said John DePhillipo, president of the company based in Margate, N.J.``If you trust your loved one to a funeral home and have been working with them for generations, then this might be the right profession to be offering this type of service,'' said Stephen Gehlert, executive director of the Ohio Funeral Directors Association. ``The jury is going to be the consumer.''With cremation jewelry, the question was whether to store remains of a loved one in a locket or pendant. DNA storage is a much more profound issue, full of ethical questions.

     At the urging of her seven children, Kathleen Hanrahan, 79, of suburban Cincinnati had DNA samples taken of her husband, Bert, when he died in October. Bernie Naegele, who owns a funeral home in Cincinnati and is co-founder of DNA Analysis, performed the procedure.``We talked about it in the family and it sounded like the wave of the future,'' Mrs. Hanrahan said. ``My children thought it would be very useful for their children or grandchildren.''

     But Eric Juengst, associate professor of biomedical ethics at MetroHealth Medical Center in Cleveland, questioned the value of extracting DNA from the dead. Juengst said until recently, testing multiple generations for a hereditary disease like Huntington's chorea was not unusual. But scientific advances have allowed the same information to be gathered by testing just one individual.``The way that genetic tests are being sold to the public as prevention tools are no more powerful than the tools we use today like cholesterol tests,'' Juengst said. ``This is a very minimal service.''

     Taking DNA from people without getting their approval before they died also raises legal and ethical questions, said Susan Scheutzow, law professor at Cleveland Marshall College of Law.``What if a patient refused to do a DNA test when they were alive and the family had it done when that person died? What right do they have to come in after death and do that? It would be a gray area of law,'' she said. ``The problem is who is to complain?''The DNA samples also could be used to determine paternity, which might reveal a few unexpected and unwanted surprises, Juengst said.``You might find out your dad really wasn't your father,'' he said. ``Maybe that secret was supposed to go to the grave. We're supposed to respect the dead and we need to respect their genetic secrets as well.''