An Analysis Of Henrietta Lacks A Family Consents To A Medical Gift

Every year doctors move forward in the chase to find cures for diseases, such as common colds, viruses, and more, thanks to the testing of cells from the infected. Henrietta Lacks’ stolen cancer cells have led to biological advances that have been crucial for several cures. In “A Family Consents to a Medical Gift, 62 Years later,” Carl Zimmer focuses on Henrietta Lacks’ cells, the tension between the National Institute of Health, and the battle to release the experiments to the public all while attempting to choose the side of the companies over the side of the family that was kept outside of the loop. Over 1,500 people die from cancer in a day, 500,000 in a year (Landis). Henrietta Lacks lost her battle to cervical cancer in 1951. Henrietta’s

Since Henrietta’s information was posted online for research purposes, there was a possible threat that people could obtain information about Henrietta’s children, grandchildren, and even further down the line. Eventually, the family and the N.I.H, National Institutes of Health, came to an agreement and made Henrietta’s information available when people apply for

The first photo seen in the article is a picture of Henrietta’s granddaughter and her granddaughter’s children smiling at each other. The author used this picture to successfully portray the fact that Henrietta’s family was not actually harmed nor affected in any way by the doctors using Henrietta’s cells. Starting on a positive note, the author then could go into details with the reader prepared to here good news rather than the opposite. The next picture was then strategically placed to distract the reader from the information about laboratories posting Henrietta’s cells publicly. On the right side of the second page, the picture portrays Henrietta as a confident, middle class woman, while on the left side of the page, the author describes how laboratories posted the genome of Henrietta’s cells publicly. The author wanted to separate the two to try combine the positive and negative aspects of the situation and make the reader think that the good outweighs the