How would one confirm that the ashes in the urn are from who their supposed to be? (lemmy.ca)

submitted 3 days ago by lazylion_ca@lemmy.ca to c/asklemmy@lemmy.world

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[-] ininewcrow@lemmy.ca 14 points 2 days ago

Just make sure you aren't cremated in Eastern Europe

I watched a documentary a while ago about how crematoriums in Eastern Europe, especially in war torn areas like Ukraine, routinely collect bodies and then spend the time cutting up the bodies while in their care for organ harvesting. One of the biggest businesses out there apparently is bone harvesting .... bone material that is used for dentistry, bone repair and all kinds of things. Bone grafts and powder that makes its way to the medical market in first world countries like the US and Canada.

It made me think of the process of having a tooth pulled ... they often use bone grafts to help the healing process of a newly extracted tooth. That bone graft material had to come from somewhere.

Once the body is in the care of a private business .. who knows what they do with it. Then the body is cremated and no one would ever know that the body had been disrupted and cut up.

I don't think stuff like that happens in Canada or US ... but we do just blindly put our full trust in these business to collect, store and process dead bodies for us without much oversight or monitoring. Part of the documentary did mention that in the early 2000s, there was one morgue in New York state that had someone dissect bodies to collect parts illegally before they were found out. After that, they had to tighten up laws and security and regulations dealing with the dead.

I felt weird just mentioning all this so I went to look up the documentary .... here it is ...

Body Snatchers Inc. : What If Your Implants Were Stolen Organs?
https://youtu.be/pENORq4KlwU

[-] aramis87@fedia.io 14 points 2 days ago

I don't think stuff like that happens in Canada or US

sigh. I can't speak for Canada, but unfortunately it does happen in the US: California, 1980's. Colorado, 2010's. And the one that brought it to my attention, New Jersey, 2006:

The indictment was the first set of charges to come out of a widening scandal involving scores of funeral homes [that sent the bodies for cremation] and hundreds of bodies, including that of “Masterpiece Theatre” host Alistair Cooke, who died in 2004. The investigation has raised fears that some of the body parts could spread disease to transplant recipients.

[-] whyNotSquirrel@sh.itjust.works 4 points 2 days ago

Apart from bones, what can you take from a dead body? Organs have to be "alive" to be taken, so you can only harvest organs from brain dead people and still under life assistance

[-] null@piefed.au 3 points 2 days ago

I find this really hard to believe.

I'm sure that unauthorised organ harvesting has occurred in isolated circumstances.

But I'm incredulous that it could happen on an industrial scale.

[-] garbagebagel@lemmy.world 3 points 2 days ago

I had bone graft put in after I got my wisdom teeth out but I'm pretty sure my dentist told me it was some sort of animal bone, not human. I'll trust him cause that's slightly less creepy to me.

[-] null@piefed.au 2 points 2 days ago

I didn't realise that this was a thing.

I guess your body just kind of tolerates bone for some reason? Usually for transplants you need meds to suppress your immune system forever.

[-] garbagebagel@lemmy.world 3 points 2 days ago

I got curious. Apparently they are from cow bones and are processed at high temps to avoid immune rejection.

Xenogenic bone is derived from non-living bone of another species, usually a cow. The bone is processed at very high temperatures to avoid the potential for immune rejection and contamination. Like allogenic grafts, xenogenic grafts serve as a framework for bone from the surrounding area to grow and fill the void. Source

There are different kinds of grafts though that do include cadaver or auto-grafting, but I am 99% sure my doctor said mine was cow bone.

[-] null@piefed.au 2 points 2 days ago

Yeah right. I guess if you process it so it's just calcium or something rather than living tissue.

this post was submitted on 22 Aug 2025

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