Businessinsider.co.za | 71 Chinese inmates had hearts or lungs removed during executions, a new study says

At least 71 death row inmates in China had their vital organs removed, to be used for transplants, before they were officially declared dead, according to a study published in the Am erican Journal of Transplantation . "We found that the physicians became the executioners on behalf of the state, and that the method of execution was heart removal," an author of the study, Matthew P. Robertson, said in a statement to Al Jazeera . For decades, per the study, Chinese surgeons have broken a crucial transplant donor rule: Don't remove organs from a live body. The authors of the…