Amid reports that organ donors may be at risk for having their body parts harvested while still alive and kicking, the Trump administration has launched a sweeping reformation of the U.S. organ transplant system.
The move, announced by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., comes on the heels of an investigation by the department’s Health Resources and Services Administration that revealed “disturbing” practices by a major organ procurement organization.
“Our findings show that hospitals allowed the organ procurement process to begin when patients showed signs of life, and this is horrifying,” Kennedy said in a statement.
“The organ procurement organizations that coordinate access to transplants will be held accountable. The entire system must be fixed to ensure that every potential donor’s life is treated with the sanctity it deserves.”
The administration directed the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network – which links organ donation and transplantation professionals throughout the country – to reopen a case involving potentially preventable harm to a neurologically injured patient by the federally funded organ procurement organization serving Kentucky, southwest Ohio and part of West Virginia. The department did not name the organization.
The New York Times recently reported that the federal inquiry had begun last fall after 36-year-old Kentuckian Anthony Thomas Hoover II’s organs were pursued even as he shook his head and drew up his knees to his chest. Hoover’s sister, Donna Rohrer, had previously told NPR that she felt “betrayed by the fact that the people that were telling us he was brain dead and then he wakes up.”
Source: The Independent, 21 July 2025
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