The Trump administration said Wednesday it will shut down a Kentucky organ donation group accused of continuing plans for organ retrieval from some patients who unexpectedly showed signs of life.
While those surgeries were canceled, the cases made headlines several years ago, prompting a spike in people around the country revoking their organ donor registrations.
Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. called the nonprofit Network for Hope “a bad apple” and accused it of “persistent safety failures” in announcing the government was starting the process to decertify it.
Network for Hope is one of about 55 organ procurement organizations, or OPOs, that coordinate the recovery of organs from deceased donors and help match them to patients on the nation’s transplant list. In a statement, Network for Hope said it “strongly disagrees” with Kennedy’s decision and will appeal.
Among the allegations is that in 2021, Network for Hope’s predecessor organization pressured a local hospital to proceed with plans to withdraw life support and retrieve organs from a man despite signs that he was waking up from a drug overdose. The man survived and his sister joined Kennedy at a press briefing Wednesday, thanking him.
