There have been many conflicts in the past in the medical field about violating patients’ privacy rights. In the book, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, there is an issue where her cells are taken to check what she went to the hospital for, yet, her cells weren’t only checked for that. Her cells were being transported, sold, and even injected into other people for experiments without any form of consent. The Skid Row Cancer Study and the Henrietta Lacks study are similar in the way that they both have some ethical issues having to do with consent. Around the 1950’s, Dr. Perry Hudson (a medical researcher from Columbia University) wanted to perform some prostate biopsies to see who had prostate cancer in Manhattan on 1,200. He …show more content…
They trusted the scientists so they thought they knew all they needed to know, but they didn’t know the most important. They didn’t know what would happen to their bodies after the experiment, they didn’t know that there would be possibilities of rectal tears or of impotence. (Kolata) If the biopsies came positive of prostate cancer, they would get a clean bed, 3 meals for a few days and free medicaid care and treatment. Also, being that they were positive for prostate cancer, a procedure would be performed where the prostate and possibly their testicles would be removed. Although, the procedure wasn’t proved to help their lives in the greatest way. Like in the book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, they speak to Day about drawing his kids’ blood, but never told them actually for what. The whole time Deborah thought it was a test to see if they had cancer, which she was desperate to know her results; yet they drew their blood to check for the genetic marker (Skloot, page 185). The men got their prostates checked to see if they have prostate cancer, but they didn’t know what the side effects were (including rectal tears, impotence and even infections because of the biopsy), they didn’t know that they were going to experience