Hundreds of Chinese doctors and other medical workers have been acting as “executioners” for the state to sustain the lucrative organ transplant industry, a study published in a top U.S. medical journal has found. The study, published in the American Journal of Transplantation on April 4, reviewed more than 120,000 Chinese-language publications on organ transplants and identified 71 papers where physicians had carved out hearts and lungs from people for transplants without first conducting a test to establish brain death—revealing that patients were killed for their organs. A total of 348 medical professionals or researchers, including surgeons, nurses, and anesthesiologists from 56 Chinese hospitals spread nationwide were co-authors to these 71 papers. The problematic papers came out between 1980 and 2015, during which period there was no official voluntary donation system in place in China and few voluntary donors. The regime had claimed that during this period most organs for …