EXCLUSIVE – House Republicans and Democrats are pressing the Department of Health and Human Services to increase transparency on possible “systemic problems” and “threats to patient safety” in the national organ transplant system, according to a letter obtained by the Washington Examiner.
Bipartisan leadership on the Energy and Commerce Committee wrote to Health Resources and Services Administrator Thomas Engels on Friday, probing whether the agency is able to conduct a wide-ranging review of patient safety after multiple reported incidents of organ donor patients being egregiously mistreated by organ procurement organizations.
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Chairman Brett Guthrie (R-KY), along with ranking Democratic Rep. Frank Pallone (NJ), John Joyce (R-PA), and Yvette Clarke (D-NY), said in a joint statement on Tuesday that their ongoing investigation into the organ procurement system “has demonstrated the need for further oversight” and that problems may exist nationwide.
“The American people should be able to have full faith and confidence in our organ donor and transplant system, and we will continue to work together to prevent these harmful practices from continuing,” said the bipartisan representatives in their statement.
The Energy and Commerce Committee began its longer-term investigation testimony last fall about a Kentucky patient, Anthony Thomas Hoover II, whose family agreed to proceed with organ donation following an overdose in 2021.
Although Hoover’s neurological condition improved, representatives from the Kentucky Organ Donor Affiliates, the organ procurement organization serving Kentucky, moved forward with the organ retrieval process. Records indicate that Hoover woke up on the operating table before the retrieval surgery, and hospital staff intervened to stop the procedure.
HRSA, which oversees the national Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network and its contractor organ procurement organizations, conducted its own internal investigation into the Kentucky situation following the revelation of Hoover’s case.
The HRSA corrective action plan, issued in May, examined 351 organ procurement cases in Kentucky between December 2024 and February 2025 that did not result in donation.
About 30% of those cases, 103 patients, presented “concerning features,” including 73 patients who showed neurological signs of life after being approved for organ donation surgery and 28 patients who may have survived entirely since there was no cardiac time of death recorded.
Other “concerning features” of the incidents in the HRSA report, according to Guthrie and his House colleagues, include “issues related to patient and family interactions, medical assessments and healthcare team interactions, recognition of high neurological function, and recognition and documentation of drugs in patient records.”
Additionally, the head of the Organ Transplant Branch within HRSA, Dr. Raymond Lynch, told the Energy and Commerce Committee during a hearing in July that his agency has “received concerns” from other areas of the country.
“HRSA’s testimony and other public reports suggest that these patterns are not limited to instances detailed in HRSA’s report and may exist in other parts of the country,” Guthrie and his colleagues wrote.
The bipartisan representatives in their letter cited a New York Times piece published in August about Misty Hawkins, 42, from Alabama, who was taken off life support in the spring of 2024 and prepped for organ donation. Doctors discovered while she was on the operating table that her heart was still beating and she was breathing during her organ retrieval surgery.
Last week, another story came to light of a 22-year-old patient from Kentucky who, in 2019, was taken to surgery to have his organs removed for donation despite still having a heartbeat and not being declared brain dead.
Larry Black Jr., who arrived at the hospital a week prior due to a gunshot wound to the head, was rescued from surgery just in time by another physician. Now at 28, he is a father to three children.
HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. directed HRSA in July to conduct a deeper investigation into the Kentucky organ procurement case, saying that “the entire system must be fixed to ensure that every potential donor’s life is treated with the sanctity it deserves.”
But the agency has not yet announced plans for a nationwide review of organ transplant systems.
Guthrie and his House colleagues requested that HRSA provide more information on the current status of all patient safety complaints that the agency has received and whether or not HRSA has the capacity “to initiate other wide-ranging reviews appropriate, in response to a patient safety complaint that may suggest a systemic problem.”
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The committee requested a staff-level briefing no later than September 26.
“Americans’ confidence in the system comes when patient safety is protected,” said the bipartisan House coalition.