Trump HHS Finds Patients Are Being Taken for Organ Retrieval While Still Alive
On July 21, 2025, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) under Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. announced a major push to begin reforming the U.S. organ procurement and transplantation system. This announcement was prompted by a Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) investigation that uncovered multiple examples of patients who were not dead when they were taken for organ procurement.
The HRSA investigation revealed that out of 351 cases studied, 103 (29.3 percent) were found to have problems. They discovered 73 patients (21 percent) who were authorized for organ procurement despite having neurological signs incompatible with organ donation. And disturbingly, at least 28 patients (8 percent) may not have been deceased when doctors began surgery to remove their organs.
The independent HRSA investigation began after the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network (OPTN) claimed to find no major concerns in their review of the 2021 TJ Hoover case. TJ Hoover, a supposedly “brain dead” man, began thrashing and crying as he was being wheeled to the operating room to donate his organs. His family was told that this was just “reflexes.” Whistleblowers claimed that even after two doctors refused to remove Hoover’s organs, Kentucky Organ Donor Affiliates ordered their staff to find another doctor to perform the surgery. Thankfully, surgery was called off, and Hoover went on to recover and even dance at his sister’s wedding.
On July 20, 2025, the New York Times published an article reporting multiple cases of donors who were not dead when they were scheduled for organ procurement. This article focused on the problems of “donation after circulatory death” (DCD). In DCD, patients are not “brain dead” but either are not expected to survive or have decided that their quality of life is unacceptable. Their deaths are planned to occur at a specific place and time so that they can become organ donors.
The patient is made “do not resuscitate” (DNR), ventilators and infusi
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