Inside the Black Market for Organs

This week on Zoomers 2 Boomers, Paige and her dad sit down with David Shactman, a Harvard-trained healthcare policy expert, longtime Brandeis University faculty member, and now a novelist. Over the course of his career, David studied the U.S. healthcare system from the inside — shaping policy, testifying before Congress, and co-authoring the book The Power, Politics, and Universal Health Care.

Today, he’s turned his attention to fiction, using storytelling to shed light on the hidden realities of privilege, systemic injustice, and the gray zones of medicine. His debut novel, Mortal Choice, is a gripping thriller that weaves together healthcare, morality, and suspense — offering a new way to explore topics he spent decades analyzing through data.

In this episode, David shares his winding path from business and real estate to Harvard’s Kennedy School and into the world of health policy, before reinventing himself as a novelist. The conversation covers the dark realities of the black market for kidneys, the moral questions surrounding organ sales, and the challenges of writing healthcare issues into compelling fiction. You’ll also hear David’s reflections on generational responsibility, the state of healthcare today, and why he believes the next generation has the chance to fix what his didn’t.