HHS Secretary Reveals Shocking Organ Transplant Practices

“This seems to be a story more fitting for a horror movie than a congressional hearing, frankly,” said Florida Rep. Neal Dunn at a congressional hearing last month, The Washington Post reported. 

In late July, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. revealed an investigation had discovered “that hospitals allowed the organ procurement process to begin when patients showed signs of life.”

On Aug. 4, Kennedy penned on X: “Under my leadership, @HHSGov is overhauling the organ transplant system. We’ve exposed gross negligence, launched sweeping reforms, and will decertify any organization that violates the sanctity of human life.” 

In an interview with Newsmax’s Rob Schmitt Monday, Kennedy described some of what the Department of Health and Human Services has found so far in its investigation.  

“Yeah, I mean, it’s a horror story,” Kennedy said. “And part of it is because of the capture of the agency that was regulating [organ transplants] had the board that was actually regulating organ harvesting overlapping with the contractor that was actually harvesting the organs. It was done state by state. Some of the states were just truly a nightmare. It was sickening to read these stories.” 

Kennedy spoke of one such case brought to his attention when the donor’s family took legal action.  

“In one instance where a family was waiting at the hospital for the body of their deceased relative, the relative [who] was brought to one of these private organ harvesting centers awoke while they were harvesting her organs, and then was brought back to the hospital, where she died eventually,” Kennedy said. “We’ve done a complete investigation of that company, we’ve taken the contract away from that company, and we’re reorganizing it so that we will be regulating it and running it directly in HHS, and this will never happen again.”