Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
What a nightmare...
| But a nightmare Secretary Kennedy recognizes and is already working to fix. More winning. |
[Regnum] The number of organ transplants that put living donors at risk has increased in American hospitals. This was reported on July 20 by The New York Times (NYT).
"Across the United States, people faced hasty or premature attempts at organ harvesting. Some choked, cried, or showed other signs of life," the article noted.
According to the publication, hospitals are responsible for patients until the moment of death, and some of them allow organ procurement organizations to influence treatment decisions.
According to the report, workers in several states saw coordinators convincing hospital doctors to prescribe drugs to speed up the death of potential donors.
| I checked the internet. Two from the Department of Health and Human Services to give us perspective, the first from yesterday, the second dated 15. January, 2025 to give us an idea of trends before President Trump took over: |
HHS Finds Systemic Disregard for Sanctity of Life in Organ Transplant System
Secretary Kennedy Threatens Closure of Deficient Organ Procurement Organization
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) under the leadership of Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. today announced a major initiative to begin reforming the organ transplant system following an investigation by its Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) 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,” Secretary Kennedy said. “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.”
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.
Under Secretary Kennedy’s leadership, HRSA demanded a thorough, independent review of the OPO’s conduct and the treatment of vulnerable patients under its care. HRSA’s independent investigation revealed clear negligence after the previous OPTN Board of Directors claimed to find no major concerns in their internal review.
HRSA examined 351 cases where organ donation was authorized, but ultimately not completed. It found:
- 103 cases (29.3%) showed concerning features, including 73 patients with neurological signs incompatible with organ donation.
- At least 28 patients may not have been deceased at the time organ procurement was initiated—raising serious ethical and legal questions.
- 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.
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.
Secretary Kennedy will decertify the OPO if it fails to comply with these corrective action requirements [PDF].
HRSA also took action to make sure that patients across the country will be safer when donating organs by directing the OPTN to improve safeguards and monitoring at the national level. Under HRSA’s directive, data about any safety-related stoppages of organ donation called for by families, hospitals, or OPO staff must be reported to regulators, and the OPTN must update policies to strengthen organ procurement safety and provide accurate, complete information about the donation process to families and hospitals.
These findings from HHS confirm what the Trump administration has long warned: entrenched bureaucracies, outdated systems, and reckless disregard for human life have failed to protect our most vulnerable citizens. Under Secretary Kennedy’s leadership, HHS is restoring integrity and transparency to organ procurement and transplant policy by putting patients’ lives first. These reforms are essential to restoring trust, ensuring informed consent, and protecting the rights and dignity of prospective donors and their families.
HHS recognizes House Committee on Energy and Commerce Chairman Brett Guthrie’s (KY-02) bipartisan work to improve the organ transplant system and looks forward to working with him and other issue-area champions in Congress to deliver reforms.
Organ transplants exceeded 48,000 in 2024; a 3.3 percent increase from the transplants performed in 2023
More organ transplants occurred in the United States in 2024 than ever before, according to preliminary data from the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network (OPTN).
The 48,149 transplants represent an increase of 3.3 percent compared to the 2023 total and 23.3 percent over the past five years. These life-saving procedures were made possible by the generous contributions of 16,988 deceased donors and 7,030 living donors.
“We are gratified that we are able to save and extend more lives each year through organ donation and transplantation,” said Richard Formica, M.D., president of the OPTN Board of Directors. “Yet many more people await the opportunity for a transplant. We must continue to grow and expand our capacity to ensure we are doing as many transplants as possible with the gifts entrusted to us.”
TRANSPLANT TRENDS
A total of 41,119 transplants were made possible through deceased organ donation in 2024. This is the first year the threshold of 40,000 deceased donor transplants was surpassed, which represents an increase of 3.6 percent over 2023. Deceased donor transplants have set new annual records each of the past 12 years.
Living donors enabled an additional 7,030 transplants. This was the second highest annual total, surpassed only in 2019.
DECEASED DONATION TRENDS
A total of 16,988 people were deceased donors in 2024, providing one or more organs for transplantation.
A major increase has occurred in donors who are pronounced dead after the total cessation of heartbeat and respiration (commonly called donation after circulatory death, or DCD). In particular, recent clinical practices have made it more clinically feasible for DCD organs to function well in lung and liver transplant recipients. In 2024, there were 7,280 DCD donors, an increase of 23.5 percent over 2023.
Conversely, the 9,706 donors who encountered brain death (total cessation of brain function) represented a decrease of seven percent compared to 2023. This is the first decrease in brain death donors since a steady rise began in 2013.
The proportion of deceased donors aged 50 and older continues to grow relative to donors of younger age. In 2024, there were 8,191 donors in this age range, accounting for 48.2 percent of the entire donor population.
In 2024, the number of donors who died from drug intoxication reversed an upward trend seen over several years, declining to 2,066, a 23.9 percent decrease compared to 2023 and the lowest annual total since 2021.
LIVING DONOR TRENDS
A total of 7,030 people became living donors in 2024, donating either a whole kidney, a segment of their liver, or a uterus.
While the most common age range of living donors remains 35 to 49, there are increasing numbers of donors aged 50 and older.
Most notable is the increase in living donors aged 65 and older. In 2024, there were 476 such donors, an increase of 14.2 percent over 2023 and more than double the annual total each year up through 2016.
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