Advertisement

Fact check: No, aquamation remnants are not used to 'feed the dead to the living'

Eleanor McCrary, USA TODAY
·4 min read

The claim: After aquamation, human remains are dumped in drains or used for food processing

A March 21 Facebook post (direct link, archive link) shows a video of a person in scrubs opening the door to a large metal cylinder.

"BREAKING NEWS: The dead are liquified and fed to the living," reads the text overlaid on the video.

A voiceover makes several more claims about alkaline hydrolysis, or "aquamation."

"Check out this death chamber, this washing machine," it says. "They call it 'aquamation,' where they liquify the dead and then dump the remains down the drain to be recycled into the municipal water supply. ... And they’re grinding up the bones into powder. They call this calcium phosphate, which is going to be used for food processing undoubtedly."

It was shared over 4,000 times in three days.

Follow us on Facebook! Like our page to get updates throughout the day on our latest debunks

Our rating: False

Alkaline hydrolysis, or "aquamation," is the process of decomposing a human body with hot water and a strong base solution. There is no human DNA, flesh or pathogens left at the end of the procedure, experts told USA TODAY. The bones are given to the family, not put into the food supply.

Fluid does not contain 'human remains'

Alkaline hydrolysis does use water to accelerate the decomposition process, but the claims in this video are false, said Dean Fisher, the former director of the Donated Body Program at the University of California in Los Angeles.

Fisher is the person in scrubs featured in the video. He assisted with the research and development of modern alkaline hydrolysis.

The original footage of him, published by the Daily Mail in 2017, was dubbed over.

"Everything he said in that video is total hogwash," he said. "None of it is true."

In reality, alkaline hydrolysis is another option for death care, like cremation or traditional ground burial. It first emerged in the late 1800s and is legal in 28 states, said Janet McCord, a professor of thanatology at Edgewood College.

The process is similar to cremation, but it uses a hot, alkaline solution instead of fire, said Troy Centazzo, a California funeral director.

Liquid waste, called effluent, is leftover once the procedure is finished. It does not contain human remains, though.

"The effluent is sterile and contains salts, sugars, amino acids and peptides," Centazzo said. "Effluent is basically salt water. There is no tissue and no DNA left after the process is completed."

Fact check: Male and female animals used for meat, estrogen levels don't affect humans

An autoclave, a device commonly used in doctor's offices, also destroys all pathogens that might have been in the body, Fisher said.

Alkaline hydrolysis effluent is "far cleaner than most wastewater" according to the Cremation Association of North America.

When the effluent is discarded it joins other kinds of waste, like human excrement, in a water treatment plant, Fisher said. There it is processed in accordance with Environmental Protection Agency standards, said Tim Carroll, the EPA press secretary.

"The EPA is not aware of any direct connections of untreated waste from alkaline hydrolysis cremation facilities directly into a drinking water plant," he said.

While it goes through this additional cleaning process, some people have asserted that alkaline hydrolysis effluent would be safe to drink without it, according to Smithsonian Magazine.

People are not drinking or showering in human remains, as the post asserts.

Leftover bones are not used in food

Contrary to the post's claim, the bones that remain after alkaline hydrolysis are not used in food.

There is "no evidence that the calcium phosphate from crushed bones is used in food for either human consumption or animal consumption," McCord said.

Instead, family members of the deceased can choose whether or not they would like to receive the bones intact or have them crushed into ashes.

"In a funeral home setting, the ashes always go back to the next of kin," Fisher said.

Fact check: Video shows mother and baby born healthy, not stillborn child revived by prayer

When people donate their bodies to science at the University of California, the ashes are scattered in the Pacific Ocean, Fisher said.

It would be illegal to use the bones in food.

"The FDA prohibits the use of human remains in food products," said Courtney Rhodes, a public affairs officer for the Food and Drug Administration. "The agency’s regulations state that any food product that contains non-food materials, including human remains, is considered adulterated and cannot be sold or distributed for consumption."

USA TODAY reached out to the social media user who shared the post for comment.

Our fact-check sources:

Thank you for supporting our journalism. You can subscribe to our print edition, ad-free app or electronic newspaper replica here.

Our fact-check work is supported in part by a grant from Facebook.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Fact check: No, aquamation isn't used to 'feed the dead to the living'