LEXINGTON, Ky.—TJ Hoover sat in the front row as Robert F. Kennedy Jr., secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, announced the impending decertification of the Network for Hope, a Kentucky-based organ procurement organization, on Aug. 5.
Hoover is a Richmond, Kentucky, man who narrowly escaped death in 2021 when doctors attempted to harvest his organs for transplantation while he was still alive.
Kennedy said the federal department had begun the process of decertifying the Network of Hope, a successor group to the one that organized the attempted procurement of Hoover’s organs.
“An organ procurement organization is entrusted with one of the greatest gifts that a human being could give: the gift of life,” Kennedy said at a press conference at the University of Kentucky. “That responsibility demands excellence. It demands transparency, and above all, it demands respect for the dignity and sanctity of every human life.”…