The 1956 science fiction/horror film, "The Invasion of the Body Snatchers," came to mind when I was writing this piece, leading to my riffing on it as "Invasion of the Organ Snatchers."
While the former was just a movie, the latter is anything but:
Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is demanding major reforms to the nation’s organ transplant system following a disturbing investigation that revealed organs were nearly taken from patients who were not only still alive — but many of them also still showed signs of life.
According to a review by HHS, 351 approved but ultimately incomplete organ donation cases in Kentucky were examined. More than 100 of those cases — roughly 30 percent — included what the agency described as “concerning features,” including 73 patients who exhibited neurological activity inconsistent with eligibility for organ donation. In at least 28 of those cases, the patients may not have been clinically dead when the organ procurement process began.
Kennedy said in a press release, in reference to the review:
Our findings show that hospitals allowed the organ procurement process to begin when patients showed signs of life, and this is horrifying. 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.
Clearly. As I suggested earlier, this is the stuff of science fiction horror films.
HHS's Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) said the finding raised serious ethical and legal questions, and that "evidence pointed to poor neurologic assessments, lack of coordination with medical teams, questionable consent practices, and misclassification of causes of death, particularly in overdose cases."
Not to digress, but have you ever wondered whether designating oneself as an organ donor on a driver's license, or having a DNR (Do Not Resuscitate) directive could potentially lead a — let's call it "trigger happy" — doctor or medical team to be a tad too eager to harvest your organs? I have.
While I've supported both organ donation and DNR directives — and continue to do so — reports like this do make a guy (this one, anyway) a bit cautious.
Then there's the sanctity of life thing, meaning the belief that all human life inherently has value and is sacred, regardless of age, health, or social status. Heady stuff, I know, but stories like this one — even if it's an outlier — can reasonably give one pause.
Anyway, here's more from the HHS press release linked above:
HRSA directed the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network (OPTN) to reopen a disturbing case involving potentially preventable harm to a neurologically injured patient by the federally-funded organ procurement organization (OPO) serving Kentucky, southwest Ohio, and part of West Virginia. Under the Biden administration, the OPTN’s Membership and Professional Standards Committee closed the same case without action.
[...]
Vulnerabilities were highest in smaller and rural hospitals, indicating systemic gaps in oversight and accountability. In response to these findings, HRSA has mandated strict corrective actions for the OPO, and system-level changes to safeguard potential organ donors nationally.
The OPO must conduct a full root cause analysis of its failure to follow internal protocols—including noncompliance with the five-minute observation rule after the patient’s death—and develop clear, enforceable policies to define donor eligibility criteria. Additionally, it must adopt a formal procedure allowing any staff member to halt a donation process if patient safety concerns arise.
In addition to the HHS investigation, The New York Times recently reported on a number instances where a push for organs donations threatened potential donors.
In one case — and this is horrifying — a 42-year-old Alabama woman had her chest cut open and her breastbone sawed through before doctors realized her heart was still beating and she still was breathing.
In other cases, according to The Times:
In New Mexico, a woman was subjected to days of preparation for donation, even after her family said that she seemed to be regaining consciousness, which she eventually did.
In Florida, a man cried and bit on his breathing tube but was still withdrawn from life support.
In West Virginia, doctors were appalled when coordinators asked a paralyzed man coming off sedatives in an operating room for consent to remove his organs.
Incidents like these have come to light as the transplant system has increasingly relied on a method known as donation after circulatory death. This method represented about one-third of all organ donations in 2024 — approximately 20,000 organs — which is three times the amount donated five years ago.
Food for thought?
While most donated organs in the U.S. come from people who are brain-dead — an irreversible state — and are kept on machines only to maintain their organs, circulatory death donation is different, as the Times article explained. These patients are on life support, often in a coma. Their prognoses are more of a medical judgment call:
They are alive, with some brain activity, but doctors have determined that they are near death and won’t recover. If relatives agree to donation, doctors withdraw life support and wait for the patient’s heart to stop. This has to happen within an hour or two for the organs to be considered viable. After the person is declared dead, surgeons go in.
There it is — for me, anyway: a medical judgment call.
While most of these patients ultimately died, according to The Times, it's impossible to know what they experienced at the end. Would some have recovered if given more time on life support? Might others have felt intense pain or experienced emotional distress as organ harvesting began?
While we'll never know the answers to the above questions, this is a rare instance, in my not-so-humble opinion, where more federal government oversight is necessary, rather than less (which is usually the better option) and allowing the transplant system to police itself.
What say you?
