— Attempts to recover organs from live donors "absolutely terrifying," House member says

by Joyce Frieden, Washington Editor, MedPage Today September 11, 2024

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Presumably deceased organ donors waking up and mouthing, "Help me." Organ transplant executives threatening whistleblowers with being "cremated alive." Pancreases that could be used for transplant put in freezers and then getting "lost." Rampant Medicare and Medicaid fraud.

These were examples of problems with the current organ transplant system that House members heard about from witnesses Wednesday at a House Energy & Commerce Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee hearingopens in a new tab or window on the implementation of the Securing the U.S. Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network Act, which was signed into law last year.

Subcommittee members on both sides of the aisle expressed horror and dismay that these problems hadn't been fixed. "The testimony about donors that are still alive ... is absolutely terrifying," said Rep. Debbie Lesko (R-Ariz.). She recalled that when she served in the Arizona state legislature, "every year on the lawn at the state capitol, the Arizona Donor Network had a big event to encourage people to sign up for the donor list, and if word got out to more people that these types of things were happening, I think there'd...

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