And in this case ethic committees should have a lot of questions as well.

There's a lot going on here so I'll ask: which specific ethical concerns do you have?

Depending on the ethical rulesets you follow research on patients that are not formerly expired requires explicit or relatively explicit consent. A blanket "whatever bro" consent is not valid and cannot be given.

From every publication I found so far this was not even tried.

It can even be theorised that it could not be ethically obtained from the relatives at all.

Depending on the ethical rulesets you follow research on patients that are not formerly expired requires explicit or relatively explicit consent.

So your concern was on the human patient that this lung was implanted into.

A blanket “whatever bro” consent is not valid and cannot be given.

I don't know the system in China, but in the USA organ donation (volunteered prior to death by the person) can occur while the person is still alive if they are brain dead source. In the USA there is also the concept of a person (again prior to death) volunteering their body to science for research. However, I don't know if this allows for research after brain death, but while the person's body is still alive.

So your concern was on the human patient that this lung was implanted into.

Correct. I have been part of medical experiments on animals in the past (to validate findings that have been simulated before in computer simulations worth millions of dollars and that due to their very nature could not have been obtained on humans at all - as it is sadly is sometimes the case in emergency medicine.
With modern ethic framework for medical-non pharmaceutical experiments anyone seeing the problem on the animal side that is not a vegan (which I am not) has a misaligned ethics compass, imho.

I am also very much aware of organ donations, thx, i have taken part in some frindge capacity in around a dozen and was literally in theatre for around four or five. And you guessed it: I routinely (once a year) need to take a course that used to be taught on body donors (nowadays simulators and porcine preparations).
So yeah, I know what you mean.

But, my point is a different one :

• No matter if a country uses the model of prior consent (e.g. like the US or Germany) or prior opt-out (Japan, France, Italy) - the donor is always in a position to inform themselves about what is happening and then make an informed decision. Even if they choose not to do this, it is their free decision to not seek information that is widely available in various forms.

In the case here that doesn't apply. The patient very very likely had no chance of consenting or opting out of what later happened to them. It's fairly unlikely that the researchers went on to provide a reasonably large population of their study and its design(and,tbh, as it's a Chinese study and I know how they work due to competitiveness amongst researchers we can rule that out).
To use an easier example: If we both get asked if we would participate in a study doing this when we were confirmed brain dead, get all necessary information and we both agree, sure, it's informed consent,go ahead. But while one of us might end up brain dead due to a nasty cycling accident next week we also might both die of old age...so you need a lot of people consenting.

Unless we do that we are doing a medical experiment on a brain dead but not medically dead person.Another big no no.

Another difference from organ transplantation is the "benefit situation". In organ donations processes in most countries it is usually avoided that the facility who declares a patient brain dead is the one receiving the organs so there is no financial or moral benefit of declaring a patient brain dead. While this cannot be always adhered to,e.g. due to regional factors (Australia) or a lack of coordination systems (like the US sadly is lacking) it is still scientific consensus,even for organ donations.
For a single case study that in theory could have made a lot of news (even though it's scientific value isn't that big - the immunological issues are well known and so are the surgical issues) the hospital could in theory have put people under pressure to deliver "a patient" before someone else puts out a similar paper

The body donation issue is also another situation - while the rules in the US regarding these are fucked up beyond comprehension and reprehensible it is again a different situation as people are confirmed clinically dead.
But even for these cases the more stringent ethical frameworks warrant a definitive information of the donor in what they consent to.

Tbh, after speaking with an acquaintance who is a transplant surgeon(Ped. heart) I more and more see it as a publicity stunt with zero regards for ethics, just like when that guy cloned. Same league for me.