New Jersey organ procurement organization under congressional investigation after ‘alarming’ whistleblower claims

(CNN) — The US House Ways and Means Committee said Wednesday that it is investigating the organ procurement organization for the New Jersey region for what it called “extreme abuse of public trust” and possible illegal activity, including trying to procure organs from people who didn’t volunteer to be donors and, in at least one case, trying to continue with the organ recovery process in a patient who had “reanimated.”

The allegations were discussed in a letter the committee sent to the New Jersey Organ and Tissue Sharing Network, one of 55 organ procurement organizations that are federally designated nonprofits tasked with the multibillion-dollar business of managing the recovery of organs for transplantation in the United States.

The committee, which has investigated several organ pro