Reforms Announced After Doctors Moved To Harvest Organs Of Living People, Bombshell Investigation Claims

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) launched an overhaul of the nation’s organ transplant system Monday amid reports of surgeons attempting to harvest organs from patients who were still alive.

One such case involved Misty Hawkins, who fell into a coma after choking on a peanut butter sandwich. Her mother agreed to withdraw life support and donate her organs, The New York Times reported. After 103 minutes, she was pronounced dead and surgeons raced to recover her organs before the two-hour viability window closed. (RELATED: FACT CHECK: Will Organ Donors Not Be Saved If They Are In An Accident?)

But as a doctor cut open her chest and sawed through her breastbone, he noticed her heart still beating and her chest rising and falling. The procedure was halted, she was stitched back up — and pronounced dead again 12 minutes later.

OSAKA, JAPAN: Surgeons operate on Japan’s second set of organ transplants from a brain-dead donor at a hospital in Osaka, in western Japan 12 May 1999. (AFP PHOTO/JIJI PRESS)

Other harrowing accounts have surfaced.

In Kentucky, an unconscious man began to wake up as doctors prepared to take him off life support for organ donation, another New York Times report found. He cried, curled into himself, and shook his head — but medical officials pressed on with the procedure anyway.

Most of the patients in these cases eventually died, but some recovered enough to walk out of the hospital, according to records reviewed by the Times.

Bryany Duff, a surgical technician in Colorado, recalled one woman who lay crying and darting her eyes around as doctors sedated her and removed her from the ventilator. The woman didn’t die in time for her organs to be harvested — but passed away hours later.

“I felt like if she had been given more time on the ventilator, she could have pulled through,” Duff told the Times. “I felt like I was part of killing someone.”

In Miami, a donor with a broken neck began crying and biting down on his breathing tube as doctors prepared to withdraw life support — a clear sign he didn’t want to die, according to a procurement worker cited by the Times. But clinicians sedated him, shut off the ventilator, waited for his heart to stop, and then harvested his organs anyway.

Such stories have become more common as hospitals increasingly rely on so-called “donation after circulatory death,” which accounted for a third of all U.S. donations last year — triple the number from five years ago, the Times reported.

Unlike brain-dead donors — who are kept alive only through machines — patients in circulatory death cases are often still comatose, exhibiting some brain activity. Doctors judge them unlikely to recover, families consent to organ donation, and the ventilator is removed. Once the heart stops, the surgeons move in.

The uproar over these cases prompted the HHS to launch its own investigation.

The Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) ordered the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network (OPTN) to reopen a probe into a federally funded procurement agency covering Kentucky, southwest Ohio and parts of West Virginia, the agency said in a statement.

“Our findings show that hospitals allowed the organ procurement process to begin when patients showed signs of life,” HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. 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.”

WASHINGTON, DC – JULY 15: U.S. Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. a roundtable discussion on soil health in the Mike Mansfield Room at the U.S. Capitol on July 15, 2025 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)

HRSA’s independent probe uncovered what it called “clear negligence,” contradicting the prior OPTN board review that claimed to find “no major concerns,” according to the agency’s statement.

The investigation reviewed 351 cases where organ donation was authorized but ultimately not completed, and the findings were damning. (RELATED: Conservative Watchdog Sues Feds For Concealing Biden-Era Docs On Race-Based Organ Transplant Rules)

“103 cases (29.3%) showed concerning features, including 73 patients with neurological signs incompatible with organ donation,” the statement reads. “At least 28 patients may not have been deceased at the time organ procurement was initiated — raising serious ethical and legal questions, [and] 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.”

In response, HRSA said it has begun corrective actions against the Kentucky-based OPO and is implementing system-wide reforms to safeguard potential donors across the country.