YIKES! HHS overahuls organ donation system – need to be sure the patient is dead…

Really? This is the sort of abuse people, including some physicians, have been warning about for years. Thanks to AF for sending me this. 

According to a partially redacted, eight-page report dated May 28, 2025, HHS received “an allegation of potentially preventable harm to a neurologically injured patient.” This prompted the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), the subdepartment of HHS that oversees the organ donation system, to launch an investigation after HRSA Administrator Thomas Engels assumed his post in February.

The New York Times identified that victim as Anthony Thomas Hoover II, then 33 years old, who was hospitalized with a drug overdose in 2021. Hours after a doctor had declared him brain-dead, Hoover awakened to find medical staff preparing to remove his organs. “Even though the man cried, pulled his legs to his chest and shook his head, officials still tried to move forward.” Hospital staff ultimately became “uncomfortable with the amount of reflexes” Hoover showed, and a doctor ultimately refused to remove him from life-support. The man ultimately survived.

The Times also identified the organization preparing to remove Hoover’s organs as Network for Hope, a federally-funded “organ procurement organization” (OPO) that operates in Kentucky, Ohio, and West Virginia. The House Energy and Commerce Committee’s Oversight & Investigations Subcommittee hauled Network for Hope CEO Barry Massa in for a hearing on Tuesday, where representatives expressed their astonishment at Hoover’s story. “This seems to be a story more fitting for a horror movie than a congressional hearing, frankly,” said Rep. Neal Dunn (R-Fla).

Massa could only respond with assent. “Seeing someone like that myself, personally, yes, I think I would be disturbed.” In a Tuesday statement, Massa declared that “patient safety is our top priority. Network for Hope looks forward to working collaboratively with HHS and HRSA and encourages the development of policies that support the betterment of the organ transplant system as a whole.”