WASHINGTON, D.C. – Ways and Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith (MO-08), along with Oversight Subcommittee Chairman David Schweikert (AZ-01), are demanding documents and transcribed interviews with more than 30 employees and executives of the New Jersey Sharing Network (NJTO), an organ procurement organization under Ways and Means Committee investigation. The letter comes after nearly a dozen whistleblowers came forward to disclose concerning allegations related to NJTO’s operations and provided the Committee with evidence of fraud, cover-ups, and illegal practices, including an instance where NJTO proceeded with organ recovery from a patient showing signs of life. The organization has until December 3, 2025, to respond.
Chairman Smith and Subcommittee Chairman Schweikert issued a public request for information in April following reports of widespread corruption in the organ procurement sector, which as tax-exempt entities are subject to oversight from the Ways and Means Committee. In response to information provided by the public, Chairman Smith and Subcommittee Chairman Schweikert sent a letter to NJTO in July requesting information related to potential Medicare fraud and abuse. The July letter led to an outpouring of whistleblower outreach to the Committee, which uncovered several concerning allegations of NJTO’s practices.
The whistleblower allegations are:
- A shocking donor case where NJTO began the organ recovery process from a patient who later showed signs of life, and despite those signs of life, NJTO executives directed the organization’s frontline staff to continue with the organ recovery process.
- Organ allocation which skips the national waitlist at a rate far above national average, allegedly tied to quid-pro-quo arrangements with a least one transplant center with questionable practices. In one particularly egregious case, NJTO’s allocation practice resulted in hundreds of waitlist patients being skipped, and of those patients dozens have died, and many others were impacted.
- Instances of organ harvesting without patient consent, including the use of New Jersey Motor Vehicle Commission documents to unfairly pressure families during a time of grief.
- Potentially Lying to Congress: Allegeddocument destruction, data manipulation, and misleading statements to Congress throughout the Committee’s inquiry that may rise to the level of violating federal statutes regarding Congressional investigations.
- A mass discard of 100 pancreata on a single day, which NJTO told the Ways and Means Committee did not occur, despite internal records proving otherwise. This raises questions about whether NJTO is recovering pancreata to perform legitimate research or to help their CMS metrics.
Chairmen Smith and Schweikert wrote, “After speaking with nearly a dozen whistleblowers about these concerning allegations and receiving documents that appear to substantiate their claims, the Committee now seeks the production of specific documents and the scheduling of transcribed interviews with you and NJTO staff regarding allegations of fraudulent research practices, the manipulation of documents provided to federal investigators, out of sequence organ allocation, and an alarming cover up regarding a donation after circulatory death (“DCD”) case.” The letter continues, “The Committee has obtained information about activities performed by NJTO that amount to not only extreme abuse of public trust, but also potential violations of law. For example, NJTO appears to have covered up a horrific DCD case, allocated organs out of sequence, operated a fraudulent research program at taxpayer expense, and failed to obtain appropriate consent from donor families. In addition, there are questions about NJTO’s responses to inquiries by this Committee and other federal agencies. These allegations raise questions about whether NJTO should keep its tax-exempt status and highlights the need for potential legislative reforms.”
You can read the full letter to the New Jersey Sharing Network here.