Misinformation About End-of-Life Care Threatens Organ Donation Efforts

Recent media reports on organ donation practices have sparked widespread concern and confusion, prompting thousands of Americans to remove themselves from donor registries amid allegations of safety gaps in the transplant system.

In August, The New York Times reported that the Trump administration was “cracking down” on the organ transplant system following the newspaper’s July investigative report suggesting U.S. patients had nearly been killed for their organs. The Times article alleged instances where a woman was still alive when surgeons began organ removal procedures and described a case where a surgical technician quit after witnessing a patient “crying and looking around” before sedation and life support removal.

These cases have quickly become the foundation for bipartisan criticism of organ donation protocols, with both MSNBC and Newsmax echoing concerns, and a Congressional hearing examining the issue without significant skepticism. In September, KFF Health News published another organ donation horror story with similar allegations.

Medical and ethics experts warn that a dangerous pattern is developing in media coverage of these sensitive topics. What was once an expert-driven debate about end-of-life care best practices has transformed into a political finger-pointing exercise with potentially devastating consequences for the thousands of Americans awaiting organ transplants.

“With thousands of lives hanging in the balance, it’s critical to understand how recent news coverage has confused some of the fundamental issues involved,” explains Jedediah Lewis, CEO of the Organ Preservation Alliance.

Since 2020, more than 30,000 Americans have donated organs after circulatory death—an alternative to brain death donation that now accounts for nearly half of all U.S. deceased organ donations. This practice has significantly expanded the available organ pool over the past two decades, helping address the critical shortage of transplantable organs.

However, experts point to critical misunderstandings in recent reporting. The July New York Times article portrayed patients as being sedated or having life support withdrawn because they were organ donors. In reality, the alleged errors would have occurred regardless of donor status, as they related to the process of withdrawing life-sustaining treatment rather than the organ donation process itself.

Only about 0.3 percent of all U.S. deaths lead to organ donation, making this medical intervention exceedingly rare. Donation can only occur after a patient or their family has chosen to end life-sustaining treatment when recovery is no longer possible, or after brain death declaration.

Medical professionals note that the Times’ bombshell report of a woman allegedly still alive during organ retrieval likely described autoresuscitation—an uncommon but well-documented phenomenon where varying degrees of cardiac activity and respiratory movement are observed after circulatory death.

A 2021 study in the New England Journal of Medicine explained that autoresuscitation does not mean the patient was alive in any meaningful sense. Such events are known parts of the dying process and don’t create sufficient blood pressure to supply the brain.

Importantly, the Times report noted that surgeons immediately halted the procedure when they witnessed unusual activity—evidence that the system’s safeguards functioned as designed. “When health care workers see anything unusual or have doubts, the organ donation process comes to a halt,” said Dr. Adam Schiavi, an anesthesiologist and neurocritical care specialist at Johns Hopkins Hospital.

Medical professionals acknowledge that withdrawal of life support is emotionally challenging for healthcare workers, who may experience burnout, PTSD, and moral injury. Not all staff involved in these complex cases fully understand what they’re observing, which can lead to misinterpretations of normal end-of-life processes.

The organ donation system prioritizes maintaining public trust, even at the cost of missed donation opportunities that could save waitlisted patients. Experts fear the current wave of misinformation could reverse decades of progress in expanding the donor pool and improving transplant access.

“The miracle of organ donation is fragile. It must be handled with care,” cautions Hedi Aguiar, founder of Fundamental Roots, which provides training focused on organ donation and hospital collaboration.