With $1M per body in play, some in Congress asking if organ donors are declared dead too quickly

Some in Congress are pushing ahead with proposed reforms of the organ donation industry. That, after a bipartisan investigation exposed shortfalls, abuses, and even dangers.

Since 1988, more than half a million U.S. organ donors have made 1.1 million transplants possible. 170 million Americans are registered donors, yet more than 100,000 people still wait. Organ Procurement Organizations, OPOs, are nonprofits tasked with managing removal and transfer.

As an industry insider, Nycki Martin became a whistleblower. She’s a former surgical preservation coordinator for Kentucky Organ Donor Affiliates, or “KODA.”

“There are good parts to organ donation, but there's also a very dark side of it,” she told me in an interview.

Take the alarming case of TJ Hoover. In 2021, he was declared brain-dead after a drug overdose. He was prepped for organ donation, even when he repeatedly showed signs of life.

“TJ was taken to have a cardiac catheterization done to look at the quality of his heart as he was becoming an organ donor. His family had consented to that,” Martin says. “During that process, TJ woke up for the very first time in seven days. He was paralyzed and sedated, taken back to the ICU. The family was never told what happened, was never told that he woke up.”

Martin says TJ Hoover was still pushed toward organ removal, overseen by Martin’s then-employer, Kentucky Organ Donor Affiliates (KODA).

But during his “honor walk,” at the hospital as he was wheeled in for organ removal, Martin says he woke up even more. 

“He was more responsive, was tracking with his eyes, looking around,” Martin says. “The family was told by the KODA coordinator that that was just reflexes, and that's not true. He was waking up. So when we got him to the OR, TJ was pulling his knees up to his chest crying, trying to pull out his, you know, endotracheal tube, you know, visibly upset, you know, aware what was going on.”

The procedure to take Hoover’s organs was finally halted — when doctors refused to continue. He survived, though he’s disabled.

KODA, now “Network for Hope,” insists all protocols were followed, and says the accounts “greatly misrepresent” the case. But it has announced reforms and said it’s committed to transparency and rebuilding trust.

Meantime, a shocking review of KODA by the federal government found in 30% of cases, donors showed signs of life after organ removal began, such as response to pain, crying, or gasping— causing the procedures to be aborted.

Oregon Democrat Sen. Ron Wyden spotlighted the issues in a bipartisan investigation.

“This was slap your forehead kind of stuff. I mean, you say to yourself, ‘How can it be?’” he recently told "Full Measure." “Because most of the people who work in this field are good and caring, but there are some bad apples. There hasn't been enough enforcement and there has been, certainly in these kinds of situations you describe, a lack of training and safety."

One issue is likely that a body of a healthy deceased person can have a million dollars worth of organs.

As part of new reforms, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. recently announced the first time an Organ Procurement Organization has been shut down for unsafe practices. And he ordered all OPOs to appoint dedicated patient safety officers.

For more on this story, watch "Full Measure with Sharyl Attkisson” Sunday. Attkisson's most recent bestseller is "Follow the $cience: How Big Pharma Misleads, Obscures, and Prevails."