Organ donation is one of the most selfless acts one human being can do for another. Our nation is home to thousands of these heroes like Cpl. Jacob Douglas Robert Brandon, a proud Marine who, in his passing, gave the gift of sight to two people in need and healed countless others through tissue donation.
In 2025, our nation once again broke records for the number of organ transplants performed in a single year, with more than 49,000 patients receiving long-awaited news that they would receive the lifesaving organs they needed.
As a former cardiothoracic surgeon, I have seen both the highs and lows of organ donation and transplantation firsthand. The joy of a transplant patient hearing they will soon come off the transplant waiting list. The devastation of families grieving the loss of loved ones whose final act of kindness was organ donation.
For 14 straight years, there has been sustained growth in organs donated for transplantation. But that progress is likely to end this year, with widespread misinformation in the media and confusion about how organ donation works leading to thousands removing themselves from donor registries.
One piece of misinformation about the organ donation process that I’ve seen has stuck with me, with some alleging that organ procurement organizations are pursuing assisted suicide to obtain organs for donation.
Not only is this false, but it’s also illegal.
Organ donation and transplantation are among the most complex and highly regulated fields in medical science. There are strict rules for organ donation. Clinicians follow a rigorous process involving several stages of clinical review and oversight by separate medical teams, occurring only after a hospital has exhausted all efforts to save a patient’s life. Decisions about medical treatment, end-of-life care, and the determination that a patient has died are made by a patient’s doctor.
Full stop.
While OPOs are alerted that a patient may be a possible candidate for organ donation so they can begin necessary evaluations, undertake efforts to find potential transplant recipients, and share the promise of donation with loved ones where appropriate, OPOs only proceed after authorization is confirmed and the patient is declared deceased by clinicians.
Organ donation is a deeply personal decision, and it’s a decision the entire U.S. organ donation system is built upon, along with the shared trust that patients will be treated with dignity and respect in their final moments and in honor of their final gift.
Given the critical importance of the organ donation and transplantation system to our nation’s healthcare system and its patients, rhetoric around the donation and transplantation system must reflect the complex clinical realities of organ donation and appropriately recognize the roles of those across the continuum of care.
Individuals fearmongering and spreading misinformation to evoke policy change by force should instead put their efforts into good-faith collaboration with all parts of the organ donation and transplantation system — regulatory authorities, OPOs, transplant surgeons, hospitals, and others.
AMERICAN PATIENTS SHOULDN’T FOOT THE BILL FOR THE WORLD’S MEDICINES
It is critical to balance the need for oversight across the system with the importance of upholding the highest standards of patient safety, care, and respect. The work of an OPO and others are centered on a shared goal: saving lives.
Stories like those of Cpl. Brandon illustrate that those who dedicate themselves to a higher purpose are all around us. I hope that people will keep stories like his and other heroes in mind to ensure that we move the system forward through sustained, measured improvement, not by spreading sensationalized falsehoods at risk of destabilizing the entire system.
Dr. Larry Bucshon is a surgeon and former U.S. representative who championed the bipartisan Securing the U.S. Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network Act. Today he is a senior policy adviser at Holland & Knight, where he advocates on behalf of the Association of Organ Procurement Organizations.