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NPR: Cover Donation and Transplant With Integrity
On June 5, 2024, Science in Donation and Transplant sent a letter to Edith Chapin, National Public Radio’s Senior Vice President, Editor in Chief, and Acting Chief Content Officer, calling out the reckless, one-sided, grossly inaccurate appearance of Jennifer Erickson on Weekend Edition with Scott Simon. Erickson and Simon distorted the true state of organ donation and transplant and provided no opportunity to rebut. In short, it was beneath NPR’s journalistic heritage.
Dear Ms Chapin: (from page 2/3 ed. note)
In particular, SID&T has noted a disturbing pattern on the NPR network, in which organ transplantation is covered almost solely through the distorted and false perspective of organ transplant gadfly Jennifer Erickson, a Senior Fellow at the Federation of American Scientists. Erickson is informally connected with a cadre of aligned activists funded by Arnold Ventures, including Organize, The Bridgespan Group and Bloom Works. Each of these groups has created content and solicited media and political endorsement for attacks on the U.S. organ transplant system that, frankly, come from a parallel universe, where none of the record-breaking successes of Organ Procurement Organizations (OPO), Transplant Centers, hundreds of volunteers and thousands of donors are acknowledged or reported on. The motive for their disinformation campaign is unclear. Still, it is concerning that one of the largest and most prestigious news networks in the world would open its airwaves to them without reaching out to anyone in the organ transplant system to verify their alarming claims.