A legal watchdog group has launched an investigation into an alleged effort by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to “prioritize organ transplants based on skin color.” The Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), an agency of HHS, is currently overhauling the nation’s organ transplant system with a plan to strengthen “equity,” among other things.
“HHS is unlawfully injecting race and national origin into the HRSA Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network (OPTN),” America First Legal (AFL) said in a press release. “No American should be denied a lifesaving transplant because of the color of their skin.”
AFL, a nonprofit legal group formed by former senior Trump White House advisor Stephen Miller, has filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for records from HHS, HRSA, and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS).
Specifically, the watchdog is asking for records using any one of the following terms: “discrimination,” “discriminatory,” “race,” “racial,” “ethnicity,” “color,” “BIPOC,” “Asian,” “Indigenous,” “Black,” “Brown,” or “White” and any one of the following terms: “organ,” “transplant,” “transplantation,” “donor,” “donation,” “Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network,” “OPTN,” “United Network for Organ Sharing,” “UNOS,” “equity”, or “kidney.”
Joe Biden’s “equity” Executive Order has infused “racial grievance politics into every aspect of the federal government,” AFL stated in the press release.
The HRSA announced in January that it was changing how it would report data on organ transplants to provide more detail about the racial and ethnic background of transplant recipients. On March 22, 2023, HRSA announced a “Modernization Initiative,” which includes “a plan to strengthen accountability, equity, and performance in the organ donation and transplantation system.”
/4 On March 22, 2023, HRSA announced a “Modernization Initiative,” including a “plan to strengthen…equity…in the organ donation and transplantation system.” pic.twitter.com/dKPxhDDhNU
— America First Legal (@America1stLegal) April 3, 2023
The use of the word “equity” suggests that HRSA plans to use race and national origin as criteria for organ transplants, which, AFL notes “is patently illegal under the National Organ Transplant Act of 1984.”
“Given the Biden Administration’s deep-seated obsession with dividing Americans based on their race, there is a clear and present danger that Biden’s HHS, HRSA, and CMS plan to allocate donated organs based on the race of the recipient rather than on medical criteria17 as Congress has required,” the watchdog argued in its FOIA request.
The Biden regime’s past “racial equity” efforts have hit legal roadblocks when challenged.
In June of 2021, A federal judge blocked the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) from making loan forgiveness payments to minority farmers as part of a controversial $4 billion program.
A dozen lawsuits were filed in Florida, Tennessee, Texas and across the West and Midwest, alleging that the program was discriminating against white farmers in violation their rights to equal protection under the law.
“There are already so many things to worry about in the midst of a serious health crisis. And it’s even harder when you’re on a waitlist hoping for the lifesaving gift of an organ transplant,” said James Rogers, America First Legal Senior Counsel. “No American in that difficult situation should also have to worry that they might get hostile treatment because of the color of their skin. Congress was crystal clear when it passed the National Organ Transplant Act of 1984 – the only factors for allocating organ transplantation are ‘medical criteria’ — not the color of your skin. Today’s investigation will help make sure that all Americans get fair and equal treatment, and it is another step America First Legal is taking to hold the Biden Administration accountable for imposing oppressive race-based preferences.”