Science in Donation & Transplant recently challenged the United States House of Representatives Ways and Means Committee to question, confront and fix the real issue facing organ donation and transplant: The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services history of failure. Additionally, it is time for Congress to set aside special interests, venture capitalists and sensationalism and respect expectant recipients and donor families. Our submission includes not only the key questions the Committee should ask but the history of the misinformation campaign on donation and transplant: Anatomy of a Smear.

We submitted:

SID&T notes with some alarm that the Committee's seemingly justifying footnotes for their request (RFI) parrot past Administration misinformation and sponsored content, so-called research, funded by special interest and campaign bundler sources. Following this introduction is an extensive, objective review of that misinformation, which has redirected discussion away from sound policy-making and true Congressional oversight to the world of sensationalism and unsupported allegations.

Donor families, anxiously awaiting transplant recipients, and taxpayers deserve better. It is time for Congress to focus on the core issue: CMS failure.

The risk of inaction is the abrogation of Congressional and Executive branch responsibilities to the Federal courts, who will surely intervene when inappropriate decertification begins (the goal of the special interests desiring to take over the nonprofit system currently the world's finest by every measure.)