But the actual procedure itself was to progress medical research...who's to say they hadn't used non live tissue donors before and the transplant didnt take, meaning that both donor and receiver died?

I cant say 100% that this was purely done to make money, or was done 100% on medical research grounds because noone here has all the facts.

My opinion is that is probably WAS done for medical research BUT the sun and its sensationalisation has put its normal spin on it, dragged up something from two years ago to create a bit of public outcry.