Last Week Tonight with John Oliver
Season 10 Episode 19
Aired on December 3, 2023
Main segment: Organ and Body donation in the United States
Other segments: Expulsion of George Santos from the U.S. House of Representatives
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John: Welcome, welcome, welcome to “Last Week Tonight!” I’m John Oliver. Thank you so much for joining us. It has been a busy week. The u.n. Climate Conference kicked off, ron desantis debated gavin newsom in a real clash of the who gives a shit, and there was a notable death in the world that one TikTok account treated with the dignity it truly deserved.
Breaking news. Former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger has passed away at the age of 100. Kissinger served as America’s top diplomat and national security adviser during the Nixon and Ford administrations.
John: That’s right, Henry Kissinger died at the ripe old age of “not soon enough.” And if you live in America, you might view him as a controversial figure. But if you live in Chile, Argentina, Vietnam, Cambodia, East Timor, Bangladesh, or anywhere else on earth, you know that’s maybe the most obscene understatement of all time. Which is not to say that some weren’t upset. The New York Yankees tweeted, among other lies, “he will be deeply missed.” Which, honestly, tracks. If there’s one baseball team that could appreciate a man behind a widely hated, morally corrupt empire which used its considerable financial resources to destroy its enemies by any means necessary, it’s the Yankees. But rather than continue to celebrate that man going to hell, we’re going to turn to Congress, which on Friday did this.
The George Santos saga is officially over. Within hours of his house colleagues voting to make him just the sixth member in history expelled from office, crews were changing the locks on his Washington office doors.
His final remark, reportedly, “Why would I want to stay here? To hell with this place.”
John: Yeah, they finally kicked George Santos out. And I say finally because it was their third attempt at doing that. Apparently, it takes three tries to get rid of him — a sort of “reverse Beetlejuice” situation, if you will. What probably pushed it over the top this time though was the release two weeks ago of a scathing ethics committee report containing accusations about, among other things, his use of campaign funds.
The probe found he used some of the money for botox treatments, luxury shopping sprees at Hermes and Ferragamo, trips to Atlantic City and the Hamptons, and a subscription to the adult website OnlyFans.
John: Okay, look. I’ve been trying — we’ve all been trying. To shake our heads and say things like ‘that’s not befitting of the office”. Because we know: that’s not allowed. You’re not supposed to do that. But I have to say. If you’re gonna do something you’re not supposed to do, that is the way to fucking do it. Looking good, going out, and getting off on gig economy porn? How am I supposed to be mad he spent campaign funds vibing out on diva shit? And while Santos denies all that, the spending was just the tip of the iceberg. The report also included a full copy of the “opposition report” his own campaign commissioned on him, titled “the George Santos vulnerability report,” which was 141 pages long, featuring sections like, “Florida drivers license suspension,” “unverified degrees” and “securities fraud ponzi scheme.” Even the cover was damning, as this was the actual photo they used, which is spectacular. It’s a photo that says, “Opening for Sebastian Maniscalco” or, “I faked my own death for insurance money: a TED talk” and Santos did not take the vote against him lightly. Ahead of it, he gave a press conference that was upstaged by a garbage truck appearing in the background. Which is perfectly on-the-nose. He also vented his frustration at what he saw as a double standard.
I mean, within the ranks of the United States Congress, there’s felons galore, there’s people with all sorts of sheisty backgrounds, and all of a sudden George Santos is the Mary Magdalene of United States Congress. We’re all gonna stone this motherfucker because it’s just politically expedient. Right? Now, no pun intended, I was born on mary Magdalene’s day, which is July 22nd, which, I find it to be absolutely ironic.
John: now obviously, every word of that is a jewel and it’s impossible to pick the sparkliest. I mean, first, it’s good that he said, “no pun intended” because no pun detected. Second, that’s not irony, it’s a coincidence. And finally, not to be a total astrology girlie, but it makes so much sense that he’s a cancer/leo cusp. Prone to fits of emotion, loves to be the center of attention, and recently hard launched a husband. That shit is textbook. The truth is, this man never belonged in Congress. He belongs on bravo. Just think of everything he packed in during his brief time on the national stage. Like when he implied that his young niece had been kidnapped from a playground in Queens, possibly in retaliation for his public comments about China, or that “9/11 claimed my mothers life” even though records show she wasn’t even in New York at the time. That kind of messiness isn’t just “friends-of” behavior, it’s full-on housewife. Santos was unmatched at giving us a+ headlines like “George Santos has meltdown while holding mystery baby.” And by the way, when Santos was asked if that baby was his, his answer was, “not yet.” Which is the single funniest possible answer, outside of maybe, “what baby?” I’m just saying, Santos clearly didn’t deliver for his constituents, but he delivered hard for the rest of us. And I don’t want him to be in my government. And I don’t want to sit next to him on an airplane. But I definitely want him in andy cohen’s menagerie of damaged human beings. Call this man now, cohen, and pay him what he’s worth.
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John: Moving on. Our main story tonight concerns organs. What I personally think should be inside of pinatas. Children have to learn that their actions have consequences. Specifically, we’re going to talk about organ and body donation. Organ transplants are a topic that’s been covered on tv in many profound ways, including in this moving clip.
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John: Yes! That’s what’s known in the business as “excellent fucking television.” We’ve actually shown you that clip before on this show, during a story about — and this is true — police interrogations. And we will absolutely show it to you again, whenever the fuck we feel like it. But the point is, organ donation is extremely important, which is why there are so many ads encouraging you to do it, as well as tv commercials and psas, perhaps none more brilliant than this one from australia.
Have you thought about maybe becoming an organ donor?
Is this really the best time to bring this up?
Oh, we get it. You know, no one wants to talk about death. Ugh! But, you know, not all of us are going to the eternal paradise, and your organs could save the lives of up to six people.
Seven. Seven people. Not to mention, how your bones and soft tissue and ligaments could change the lives of many others.
And corneas. You’ll help blind people see!
What a miracle!
Obviously, I would do it. I’m Jesus.
John: Right, of course Jesus would do it. Though I will say, Jesus having none of his vital organs might complicate his resurrection three days later. Easter probably wouldn’t be as big if it celebrated the day Jesus rose from the dead and then instantly died again from renal failure. But that ad is right! Organ donation saves lives! And here in the U.S., it’s widely popular. Surveys have consistently found 90% or more of Americans indicating their support for organ donation. And around half of respondents to a recent survey had signed up as donors. And a lot of lives get saved this way. Last year, there were over 42,000 organ transplants performed here in the us. But the system that handles our donations has considerable flaws — which sometimes leak into public view, through stories like this one, about a donor heart that was being sent for processing to make life-saving tissue grafts.
A Southwest Airlines flight had to turn around because someone left a human heart on board. This happened over the weekend. This was a donor heart of course. It was headed to a clinic in Seattle from Sacramento, but someone apparently forgot to unload that heart when it reached Seattle.
My understanding is that the pilot made an announcement when they turned around that they were returning because there was a heart that had been left on board.
John: That is awful! First, “I left your heart on a southwest flight” 100% sounds like a Lana del Rey lyric. But also, it’s worth mentioning, a few years ago, southwest celebrated their fiftieth anniversary with a campaign featuring this graphic and the words “fifty years. One heart.” Which probably should’ve been updated to read “Fifty years, one heart that we totally forgot about and almost sent to Dallas.” And while we thankfully had over 42,000 transplants last year, the list of those waiting for one is over 100,000 people long, with 17 people dying each day waiting for a transplant. Making it pretty frustrating that experts say many thousands more could be done each year if our organ-transplant system functioned smoothly. It’s frankly no wonder people are desperately trying to circumvent the system, by posting Craigslist ads, putting up social media posts, or even doing this.
Marc needs a kidney. And now, because of this giant billboard, that vital message is reaching hundreds of thousands of people as they pass through the crossroads of the world.
John: It’s true, a man in need of a kidney resorted to putting up a giant billboard in Times Square. And that is clearly not what billboards should be used for. They should be used to advertise Broadway musicals, sportswear, or a weird bird that someone wants to win a contest on the other side of the world for some reason. Now, the good news is, that ad helped that man to find a living kidney donor. But, again, many aren’t that fortunate. And the issue here isn’t just with organs — because in a completely separate process, each year, around 20,000 Americans generously donate their whole bodies to science. But that system has its own issues because the definition of what constitutes “science” can be pretty loose. Your body could end up educating medical students. But it could also end up somewhere like the Oklahoma city museum of Osteology.
This is our human exhibit.
So when somebody agrees to donate their body to science, they could end up here.
It’s possible they could end up here.
Do you think, though, that people, when they think about a donation of — of their body to science, that this is an example of that?
I would automatically think it would be, yes.
John: Are you sure about that? When most people think about donating their body to science, they picture it in a reputable educational institution — not in some roadside bone collection, face down, ass up, arranged in a formation best described as “Cirque du Soleil performer’s favorite sex position.” The fact is, our donated organs — while being incredibly important to saving lives — are not getting into enough people. And our donated bodies — incredibly important to advancing knowledge — aren’t always treated with the care they deserve. So tonight, let’s talk about our donation systems for both and let’s start with the system for organs. Organ transplants are fairly recent. The first successful operation only took place in 1954. For a little perspective, that was the year Oprah was born. Organ transplantation is only one Oprah old! From there, transplants went became more common. In 1984, congress passed the National Organ Transplant Act that bans the sale of human organs, and actually opened up access by establishing a national registry for organ matching, to be run by a private nonprofit under government contract. And the organization that’s held it ever since, is called UNOS, or the United Network for Organ Sharing. It’s a national body that sits atop 56 regional “organ procurement organizations”– and we’ll get into them in a bit. But UNOS also manages the nationwide transplant waiting list. And in this documentary from 20 years ago, the head of UNOS explained the logistics that go into deciding who gets which organ.
Many people think that the way the waiting list works is that once a person is on the list, that they just simply stay on the list until time has passed and they move up to the top of the list and receive an organ. But it does not work that way. It’s a very dynamic and fluid situation, in which each person is evaluated based on medical criteria, matched with information that’s placed in the computer about each organ donor.
John: Right. While you might assume that you just get on the list, wait your turn, an organ arrives for you at the hospital, and a dog eats it off the floor while everyone nearby just kind of rolls with it, the actual matching process changes constantly based on which organs are available and which patients most need them, and in theory, that sounds amazing. But there are multiple problems. For starters, UNOS’s computer systems leave a lot to be desired. A government report in 2021 cited aged software, periodic system failures, mistakes in programming, and overreliance on manual input of data. Investigators even cited multiple system outages, with one from two years ago lasting about three hours, which isn’t good. Because every minute matters when it comes to the viability of an organ for a transplant, and as anyone who’s seen “Killers of the Flower Moon” can tell you, three hours can be an incredibly long time. But it’s not just technical errors — there are also serious issues with some of the ways UNOS has ranked patients in terms of need, most notably, when it comes to kidneys. For years, it allowed transplant centers to employ something called a black race coefficient. Which is just as bad as it sounds. Very basically, hospitals miscalculated black patients’ kidney function, based on racist junk science that said black bodies have higher muscle mass. That made black patients appear healthier than they were, pushing them down the kidney transplant list, and it’s one reason why — even though black people are four times as likely to develop kidney failure as white people — they are much less likely to receive a transplant. And while UNOS’s transplant network did approve the elimination of race-based calculations, they only did that last year and have given hospitals until January of next year to update their waiting lists. Which feels like too long, considering that the correct time to fix that problem is “fucking ages ago.” And then there’s the fact that rich people can essentially cut the line. The way they can do this is by registering themselves at multiple transplant hospitals in multiple states, with the plan to fly somewhere on a moment’s notice if one becomes available. It’s called “multiple listing,” and it’s how, in 2009, Steve Jobs was able to get a liver in a matter of weeks in Memphis despite living in California, where there was a long waitlist. But there is an obvious reason that policy doesn’t work for people who aren’t billionaire CEO’s.
Have you ever been told that you can be on multiple lists in centers all over the country?
No. That would be a great idea.
We explained the costs. Could you afford to fly to those places?
No. I don’t think so.
John: Of course. Booking a last-minute ticket can be really expensive, even on a cheap airline like the one whose logo reminds you that they once lost track of a human heart on one of their Greyhound buses of the sky. And there’s one final issue with UNOS, which is supposed to also coordinate shipping of organs between regions — for instance, a kidney that matches a rare blood type may need to be flown to another state. But even there, it relies on a primitive system of phone calls and paper manifests, with no GPS or other electronic tracking required. And that — combined with fuckups by airlines and local organizations — helps explain why nearly 170 organs over a recent five-year period could not be transplanted due to transportation problems. Kidneys have shown up late, damaged, or — in one case — in a package that was “squished,” with apparent tire marks on it. And no doctor should have to use a flattened organ. They’re performing a transplant, not making kidney piccata. One director of a transplant center sums up the current situation like this.
When you order a toothbrush on Amazon, they can tell you minute to minute where that toothbrush is. Well, that’s not been possible for organ transplantation, even though we think that what we do is considerably more important than ordering a toothbrush.
John: Look, we should obviously be able to track organs as easily as we track Amazon packages. And do you realize how shitty your organization has to be for me to say: “be more like Amazon?” Things have to be pretty dicey for me to look into a camera and say with my actual mouth, “Please be more like the soulless megacorporation created by evil Mr. Clean here.” So, to put it mildly, UNOS could and should be doing a lot better. And it’ll say that it has new leadership now and that they’re pushing for GPS tracking of all organs, which is good. But these changes have been too long coming. And UNOS is not the only player here. Remember, there are also the 56 Organ Procurement Organizations or OPOs. Each operates exclusively in its region and is tasked with working with the families of donors, facilitating the recovery of organs, and coordinating their delivery to the transplant hospital. And let me say, the job they do is very difficult. By one estimate, less than 2% of U.S. deaths occur under circumstances conducive to donation — typically, that entails someone being declared brain dead, on a ventilator, in a hospital, with oxygen and blood flowing to their organs. And OPOs have to approach families for consent at a time when they’re often in shock about what’s just happened. That is challenging. One OPO even put together a training video for its workers, where they staged conversations with actors, to show what issues might come up in the heat of that discussion. And it is an absolute roller-coaster ride.
Hi! Good morning. My name is —
You know what? I already know who you are, and I know what you want. And I’m going to tell you like I told the fucking doctor. You’re not touching him! We’re not donating shit!
If you just give me an —
You know what? Whoa, whoa, whoa. Stop! Do you see this here? Are you fucking serious right now? I’ve been sitting here for over a week! Over a week I’ve been sitting here waiting for someone to come talk to me. Oh, what? But now that they want something now everybody wants to come talk to me now, right? And what? They sent, what, this character in to do what? Convince me! You’re not touching my husband.
John: Wow. Rest in peace — both to her fictitious husband, but also to that scenery, which just got chewed by that acting powerhouse. We watch a lot of training videos for this show, and believe me — that woman is the Meryl Streep of the genre. Just to catch you up on this: the man declared brain-dead is named Jorge, and they’ve only been married for 2 months. The guy sitting next to her is Jorge’s brother. He doesn’t want her making decisions for Jorge. And he initially doesn’t want Jorge’s organs donated either, but then he remembers that when they were children, their mom — who was working two jobs after their dad left — details we don’t need, but get anyway! Would give them each their own allowance but Jorge would give his to his brother. Why? Because he’s just that giving. And eventually, they both realize Jorge would want his organs to be donated. All I’m saying is, there’s a rich backstory here. Now, is it the most gripping medical drama I’ve ever seen? No, as I’ve said, that would be this one, but it is still unexpectedly good. Now, a lot of OPOs try and get ahead of conversations like that by encouraging more people in their area to sign up as organ donors — sometimes through advertising, and sometimes even using mascots. Gift of life Michigan has Hartley T. Hart. Donate Life Wisconsin has Dottie the donor dot. Donate Life Arizona has Reggie the donor cactus, who — from that photo — seems to be high on glue. And Lifeshare Oklahoma has Derrick the donor, who is an oil rig, because, according to the organization, “oil is a precious resource just like organs are a precious resource.” Except no, they are not “just like” each other, Oklahoma. One of those should not go into your body. Besides, this is just a bad mascot. No one’s going to look at this and think “I should sign up to donate my organs.” They’ll think “Oh, no, that teletubby is suffocating!” And because each OPO is responsible for controlling the organs in its area, how well it performs has enormous consequences. And yet, until recently, that performance has been determined by the OPOs themselves, since they’ve been evaluated on self-reported data, which is a real problem. Because OPOs can fail to retrieve organs for many reasons — from exhaustion of overworked staffers to lack of resources. And employees have admitted to gaming the system to cover up those failures. Just listen to this former OPO exec.
I used to work at an OPO. And we reported false numbers to make it appear we were doing better than we were. Imagine there are 10 people who die and they all have healthy organs that can save someone’s life. We might later falsely report that only four or five of those people had healthy enough organs for donation and make it look like we were more successful in our recovery effort than we were. In fact, we might not even visit all 10 people.
John: That is not good. And I’m not saying you can never lie about death. But it’s got to be a good lie, like when Robert Pattinson went on to “The Today Show” and said, the first time I went to see the circus, somebody died. One of the clowns died. His little car exploded. The joke car exploded on him. And then later admitted “I actually made the whole thing up.” The world is a better place because of that fake clown’s but the problem is, despite the stakes being this high, OPO’s have very little incentive to do better. The government has never decertified an OPO for poor performance. And poor performance can have serious consequences for people like L.A. poet Tonya Ingram, who desperately needed a kidney. She actually appeared before Congress two years ago to explain how her region’s OPO, OneLegacy, had failed her.
The organ procurement organization that serves Los Angeles, where I live, is failing according to the federal government. In fact, it’s one of the worst in the country. One analysis showed it only recovered 31% of potential organ donors. Sometimes when you’re in this diagnosis, it kind of feels like this is it, and I will just be waiting forever until I’m no longer here.
John: That is awful. And to make it worse the then-CEO of OneLegacy, tom mone, wrote her an email, defending the job he’d done, and suggesting that the “number one thing” she could do to “improve your chances and your community’s chances of a life-saving transplant is to register as a donor and help people in your ethnic group, in particular, to choose to donate life.” And if you’re ever typing the phrase “your ethnic group” into an email, Clippy should just appear and say “no, stop what you’re doing right now.” And I have to say, onelegacy says they are deeply regretful for the email, which they want you to know was a personal communication from Tom Mone. Very much throwing him under the bus like a kidney in a box. But at this point, it should be clear: our system of managing donated organs is nowhere near where it should be. But depressingly, it’s actually a paragon of care and thoughtfulness compared to what happens when someone donates their body to science. Which brings us to whole body donation. That’s a choice thousands of Americans make every year, either for themselves or when a loved one’s organs aren’t suitable for donation. And it’s absolutely essential to both scientific research and medical training, as this med-school video will attest.
The beauty and complexity of the human body can really only be taught through the process of studying an anatomical donor. Donations provide a tactile sense of learning and really highlight the variation amongst human beings in a way that virtual reality just can’t yet.
I think this program allows people to practice and to learn in a way that will really help their future patients.
John: Exactly, donations to science can help doctors better understand the human body. For example, if I donated my body, maybe they could figure out how a man can age 47 years in a single decade. It doesn’t seem like it should be biologically possible. I’m probably going to be fine. I’m going to live forever. And in theory, that’s great. Unfortunately, in practice, you might not end up in front of medical students. Instead, you could end up here.
On a bright Sunday morning in Portland earlier this month.
This is somebody that donated their body to science.
A few dozen people spent the day inside at this downtown hotel. They paid up to $500 a seat in the ballroom to sit up close to the mysterious figure draped in a white sheet.
I heard about it through a friend, decided to broaden my experiences.
The sheet comes off, exposing the corpse of an 86-year-old man. This in-person, pay-per-view event puts regular people, paying customers, within an arm’s length of something usually reserved for doctors and scientists.
John: Okay, clearly, a Marriott hotel autopsy is stretching the definition of “science.” And not to get sidetracked, but did that guy say he heard about it through a friend? Because there’s only one way that conversation should go: your friend says, “hey, wanna go to a live autopsy?” To which you reply, “I’m sorry… What?” To which he says, “yeah, they’re dissecting a body!” To which you say, “what kind of animal?” To which he says, “no, it’s a human man!” To which you respond, “why would anyone go all the way to a medical school to watch — ” to which he interrupts with, “oh no! It’s not at a medical school, it’s in the ballroom of a Marriott in downtown Portland. But we have to be out by three, there’s a quinceanera.” To which you reply, “wait, what now?” To which he says, “yeah, and it’s only $500 to get in.” To which your only response should be, “I’ll pay $500 right now, for you to never speak to me again. This friendship is over.” And I will say: the explanation offered by the man who hosted that event wasn’t great.
The body buyer, deathscience.org, is run by Jeremy Ciliberto, who has no professional credentials. It was Ciliberto who brought the Portland body show to life and had planned one for Seattle as well on Halloween day. Can you guarantee they had knowledge that he knew that his body would be used in this way?
I can guarantee that he knew his body would be used for medical education.
John: Oh, bullshit. And I’ve gotta say, I’m not surprised that that long-lost member of “my chemical romance” doesn’t have any medical credentials. But that still doesn’t explain why he’s somehow providing “medical education.” And yet, that’s totally legal. Because bodies donated to science are bought and sold in a virtually unregulated market. There is no federal law, and no government agency monitors what happens to cadavers pledged for use in medical research and education. There are also no government-mandated nonprofits here, instead there are for-profit companies known as body brokers — or, as they prefer to be called, “non-transplant tissue banks” — who very literally sell bodies off for parts. One of the few rules that even applies to them is a statute adopted in 47 states called the Uniform Anatomical Gift Act that requires donors must provide informed consent, with those agreements typically stipulating that the body will be used for research and education. But “medical research and education” is not clearly defined. And, as you just saw, that can technically mean that your body might be carved up in a Marriott for the entertainment of a grown man in a fedora. And even organizations that do supply bodies to medical schools, like Illinois’s Anatomical Gift Association, can conduct themselves poorly. It was accused by one employee of mishandling and mistreating bodies — leaving some rotting or being eaten by rats. Which is horrific. Rats shouldn’t be hungrily devouring human bodies; they should be hungrily devouring each others bodies — I think we’ve made that pretty clear. And while the AGA said that it strongly disagreed with the employee’s allegations of mistreatment, that employee also says that he was punished for speaking out, and in the grossest possible way.
Mr. Wheatley says that when he approached his supervisors with his concerns about procedures, three dismembered heads from donated bodies were left at his desk.
My boss walked by. I asked him why the heads were at my desk, and he told me they needed to get back with their bodies so we can send them to cremation. And I said, “I understand that. Why are they at my desk?” And he told me, “Well, I don’t know, Dale. There’s a lot of strange things happening.”
John: Holy shit. “I don’t know, dale. There’s a lot of strange things happening?” If you’re bold enough to leave severed heads at someone’s desk, why be passive-aggressive? Either you’re a direct communicator or you’re not! Pick a fucking lane. And body brokers will sometimes make attractive pitches to obtain bodies. Struggling families might be told they’ll receive a cremated portion of their loved one, free of charge. Other times, families might be told their loved one’s body will be used to research the exact condition they died from. Which is a lovely idea, but it’s just not always the case. Take what happened with cody saunders, who died at age 24 from a rare disease, and I’ll let his mother explain what happened next.
We couldn’t afford a burial for Cody.
Cody’s mom, Angie, says someone told her about a company that could help. Restore Life USA offered to handle all of the expenses in exchange for using some of Cody’s body for medical research.
All I remember is they were supposed to take skin cells so they could figure out — maybe they could figure out that — what caused this disease.
John: You can see why that would be so appealing for her. And why it makes it so upsetting that, a month after Cody died, a reporter from Reuters bought her son’s cervical spine for $300, plus shipping, from that company. And if you’re thinking, “How the fuck was that allowed to happen?” Well, in almost every state, it’s legal to sell the human remains of adults. There are multiple websites where you can buy human bones. Skulls Unlimited — which is actually the company that owned that bone museum you saw earlier, sells skeletons that it guarantees are antiques — decades-old human bones onc used in places like medical schools. But under most states’ laws, they don’t have to be. And they’ll sell you a human skull for $2,200, or a rib for $40. You can even buy human teeth for $35 a pop. Which is a pretty great deal. And the reason I know that is, we bought two dozen of them! Except of course we didn’t, relax, we’re not fucking monsters! But we could have done it if we wanted to, and I’m very disappointed by how many people in this room seemed genuinely worried that we might’ve done that! Unbelievable! And you might be thinking, “this whole story has horrified me so much, I’m keeping everything inside me and I’m taking it to my grave.” But it’s really important to reiterate just how meaningful organ donation, in particular, can be. Take what happened to Alyssa Sandeen, who would have died without a heart transplant. And ten years ago, one became available, after this 20-year-old, Kate Leakly, was tragically killed by a drunk driver. That transplant saved Alyssa’s life. And a few years later, Alyssa met Kate’s family, and the result was incredibly moving.
Alyssa decided to meet Kate’s family. Over the weekend, they made the drive to Illinois. When they got there, Kate’s parents and sister were waiting. Finally, two families bonded by a special gift met face to face.
It’s so nice to meet you.
Alyssa came with her own gift, a stuffed teddy bear for the mother to keep with a sound.
So, they made a recording of my heartbeat with a stethoscope, and we decided to give that to her so she can keep her daughter’s heart with her. That’s your daughter’s heartbeat.
Just to hear her heartbeat, I can’t explain it.
John: That is amazing. And let’s all agree, Alyssa absolutely nailed that gift. That’s about as thoughtful as gift-giving gets. It’s certainly better than what I would have done: desperately look at hallmark cards and then accidentally buy one that says “Happy Graduation.” The point is, we all know donating organs saves lives. And giving your body to science can save and enhance them, too. But what we currently do with those gifts is broken. Far too many people are dying waiting for organs that could be coming, but aren’t. And one of them, sadly, is Tonya Ingram, who died last year, never having gotten the transplant that she was waiting for. So what can we do? Well, for organs, we need to raise the standards of how the system operates. And there’s actually some good news on that front from — and I can’t believe I’m about to say this — the trump administration. It actually put a rule in place that provides an objective rather than self-reported metrics for measuring the performance of OPOs. And starting in 2026, OPOs who fall below a certain standard will lose their contract. It’s one of exactly two good things we got from the trump administration, alongside this spectacular gay rabbit. Now, that new rule is not perfect. Some experts worry the standards might punish good OPOs by not properly adjusting for things that aren’t in their control, while also allowing struggling OPOs an opportunity to game the system. One particular worry is the so-called “pancreas exception,” which lets OPOs claim credit for pancreases that aren’t transplanted but are recovered for research. It’s not a great sign that one underperforming OPO in Ohio, lifebanc, went from recovering one pancreas for research the year before the new standards were released, to 151 so far this year. Also, for what it’s worth, “The pancreas exception” sounds like a direct-to-DVD thriller from 2003 starring Nicholas Cage. As for UNOS, this past September, President Biden signed a bill that could split up its contract and allow others, including for-profit companies, to compete for parts of the services it now provides. Will that improve the efficiency of our national system? Let’s hope so, but the jury’s currently out. As for whole bodies donated for research, there’s a law awaiting a vote in Congress right now that would ensure donated bodies are not unknowingly contributed to a for-profit industry, which seems like a pretty good idea. But even as we’re waiting for these long overdue improvements, let me be very clear about something here: I’m an organ donor. When I die and someone is in need of these sub-par organs, they can have at ’em! And nothing that we’ve researched or covered tonight, however unpleasant it’s been, has changed my mind about that decision. And while personally, I wouldn’t mind being a skeleton doing a backflip in a museum, I know that my family might have some objections to that. So, if you want to, and you haven’t already, you should sign up to donate your organs — you can do that at registerme.org. If want to look into being a living kidney donor, you can learn more at organdonor.gov. And whether you want to donate your organs, or your whole body, you should probably have a conversation with your family now about it. And I know it’s not easy to talk to them about this — or indeed, anything. But it — it is really important. Because remember, lives are hanging in the balance here. These donations are immensely generous gifts. And we all deserve a system that’s worthy of that generosity. One that operates with efficiency, saves as many lives as possible, and that, at the very least, ensures every heart makes its airline connection, and nobody’s body unexpectedly winds up sliced and diced in a two-star business hotel. It’s just not too much to ask.
That is our show. Thank you so much for watching. We’ll see you next week. And now, I’ll leave you with a few more glorious seconds of the most intense training video ever produced.
911 Was called, who was the first person that was notified?
Yeah, she was contacted first. Yeah, you think she had any nerve to call me about anything?
You know what, I called you. I called you several — it’s my fault you didn’t answer your goddamn phone? [Overlapping arguing]
All right, stop! It’s getting a little heavy in here. You doing okay? ♪ ♪
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