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Book Report On The Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks

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Limitations At its Finest The ability of having capacity plays an important role, especially in the medical industry, to determine if you are able to make decisions in every aspect of your life knowing that there will be consequences. A few years ago there was an African American woman whose cells were being taken and used for medical research without her consent. Rebecca Skloot who wrote, “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks” in 2010, talked about this issue in the novel. The issues being told in this novel still today are being debated. These debates consist of patient’s rights and what they are entitled to that specifically relates to them. It explains her life from the viewpoint of other people but mainly her daughter who deals with these …show more content…

But the pain didn’t go away until she went again and again and, “Henrietta told her doctors several times that she thought the cancer was spreading, that she could feel it moving through her, but they found nothing wrong with her.” (“The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks”, Chapter 8, Page 62 by Rebecca Skloot). She had a feeling that something was wrong with her because she felt a lot of pain in her vaginal area and it was not normal. The doctors knew that something was wrong but refused to tell her. “This was a time when ‘benevolent deception’ was a common practice- doctors often withheld even the most fundamental information from their patients, sometimes not giving them any diagnosis at all. They believed it was best not to confuse or upset patients with frightening terms they might not understand, like cancer. Doctors knew best, and most patients didn’t question that… it was understood that black people didn’t question white people’s and their professional judgment.”(Chapter 8, Page 62 by Rebecca Skloot). This is a very important section in the book because it says a lot of black people not being informed of what is happening to them. Henrietta’s doctor lied to her saying she was fine, because they did not want to “scare” her. But in reality that was not the case, they did not tell her because they might have already known about her cells and have already been doing test from the beginning. This all seemed like a cover up to make it seem as if they looked for Henrietta best interest and that they cared, when they really did not because she was

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171 Words | 1 Pages

In the Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot, the author demonstrates the harsh realities that many African Americans faced in the medical and scientific field during the mid 20th century. The author shows the unjust practices of this time period through interviews with the Lacks family and medical professionals. These harsh realities are proven when Skloot talks to Henrietta’s family. Henrietta’s husband, Day, explains how they took samples from Henrietta’s body without consent when Skloot writes, “Day clenched his remaining three teeth. "I didn't sign no papers," he said.

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460 Words | 2 Pages

With Henrietta the doctors took a sample from her tumor and started experimenting with it. After all the experiments they did,  the cells turn out to be the first cell line that did not died within days. One thing doctors fail to tell Henrietta was

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611 Words | 3 Pages

HeLa cells were taken from Henrietta unbeknownst to her by George Gey, a cell biologist at Johns Hopkins hospital, when she went in for a biopsy of the tumor growing inside of her. Today, those cells have been crucial in the development of the polio vaccine, aided scientists in learning more about the secrets of cancer, helped in cloning and gene mapping, and have ultimately, been sold by the billions. Even still, Henrietta was buried in an unmarked grave.

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682 Words | 3 Pages

A non-fiction book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot is about an African American woman who developed cervical cancer. While trying to diagnose her illness Johns Hopkins Hospital, got a sample of her tumor and sent to the culture lab. Inside the lab, George Guy harvests the cancerous cells that began to divide into hundreds of cells that became known as HeLa cells. The book is made up of hundreds of interviews that Rebecca Skloot accomplishes most of these interviews were of the Lacks family.

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672 Words | 3 Pages

The Fluidity of Henrietta Lacks. Gender Norms & Racial Bias in the study of the Modern “Henrietta Lacks” Henrietta Lacks was an African American woman whose cancer cells were the source of the HeLa cell line, the first immortalized cell line and one of the most important cell lines in medical research. An immortalized cell line will reproduce indefinitely under specific conditions, and the HeLa cell line continues to be a source of invaluable medical data to present day. Lacks was the unwitting source of these cells from a tumor biopsied during treatment for cervical cancer at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland, U.S. in 1951. The cells were then cultured by George Otto Gey who created the cell line known as HeLa, which is still

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613 Words | 3 Pages

Would people in 1951 feel any different if they knew black people could produce lifesaving cures with technology? Henrietta Lacks was a black woman that got cervical cancer and went to Hopkins hospital because it was the closest segregated hospital around. While Henrietta was as Hopkins, they were doing tests and during that process, Dr. Gey took Henrietta’s cells without her consent. Henrietta was diagnosed with Cervical cancer doctors took samples without her consent. She had five kids and died at Hopkins hospital on October 4, 1951 being only 31 years old.

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1629 Words | 7 Pages

After a year of sensing that something wasn't right Henrietta made the decision to get the “knob in her womb” as she would describe it checked out at John Hopkins Hospital; One of the top hospitals and at the time one of the only that would attend patients of color. She lived during a time where people could show at white-only hospitals only to be rejected and left to die. During her first visit no clear diagnosis had been made that day but one thing was clear, Henrietta was going to be a patient like no other. A couple days the results from her biopsy came back. Henrietta had a stage 1 Epidermoid Carcinoma of the Cervix.

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956 Words | 4 Pages

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks is at once a biography, a work of science journalism, and a book about the interconnected topics of ethics, justice, and racism. Henrietta Lacks, an African-American woman who died from cervical cancer in 1951, was the source of the so-called HeLa cell line, which is “omnipresent” (Skloot, 2010, p. 24) in modern science. The HeLa cell line was derived from Henrietta Lacks’ cancerous tumor, which, against the wishes of Henrietta’s family was taken from her corpse and has been used for prolific and lucrative medical research for over seven decades (Skloot, 2010). Skloot (2010) described The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks as “a biography of both the cells and the woman they came from—someone’s daughter, wife, and mother” (pp. 25-26). While the HeLa cells are ubiquitous in research, the woman from whom they came is, at best, a footnote in biological or medical textbooks.

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985 Words | 4 Pages

Maybe figure out how to duplicate the cells and use it for other drugs that can help people heal better. All through this research and testing Henrietta was left in the dark she didn’t even know that the doctors removed a piece of her cervix for research purposes. She didn’t even receive credit for her cells until much much later. No one knew about the HeLa cells except for the doctors because they were trying to keep it a secret so their project wouldn’t get shutdown by not informing the patient that they’re using their cells. Some would say that the doctors did the right thing and kept the identity of the cells disclosed because later on it led to saving so many lives.

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470 Words | 2 Pages

The article The End of the Henrietta Lacks Sage? From the Smithsonian magazine was written by Rachel Nuwer in 2013. The Smithsonian is a magazine that provides an outlook on the major topics in history, science art, popular culture and innovation all in one. This certain article dealing with science is well written. Authors should use critical thinking when writing magazine articles, but some do not.

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657 Words | 3 Pages

Henrietta, the start of it all, she was stolen. People continue to argue that Henrietta was only scammed and tormented because of her cell phone. But that just isn’t the case. Henrietta was obviously used because of how low she was on the economic scale, because doctors thought her opinion didn’t really matter. Page 250 of “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks” states “Everybody always yellin, ‘Racism!

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1020 Words | 5 Pages

About 24 years after there mothers death, Henriettas children were finally made aware of their mothers part in medical research. Leaving behind thousands of unanswered

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661 Words | 3 Pages

They fought and did not always get along, but one thing is for certain, family came first to them. Their importance of family shined through when Henrietta was first diagnosed with Cervical cancer. Although they were mostly uneducated, they asked questions and took the time to try to understand the disease Henrietta was diagnosed with. They were there for one another during the most difficult time of their lives. When a family member becomes ill, the rest of the family becomes your rock and shoulder to lean on.

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743 Words | 3 Pages

Racism in The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks Imagine your mother, sister, wife, or cousin was diagnosed with cervical cancer and you believed the doctors were doing everything in their power to help her. Only later you discovered her cells were used for research without consent and she was not properly informed of the risks of her treatment due to her race. This story happened and is told by Rebecca Skloot in The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. Skloot use of narrative and her writing style enhances the understanding of the story. Henrietta Lacks was a young black woman who was diagnosed with cervical cancer at John Hopkins Hospital.

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919 Words | 4 Pages

In the case of Henrietta Lacks and her family, the mistreatment of doctors and lack of informed consent defined nearly 60 years of the family’s history. Henrietta Lacks and her children had little to no information about serious medical procedures and the use of Henrietta’s cells in research. Henrietta’s cells launched a multibillion-dollar industry without her consent and doctors even took advantage of her children’s lack of education to continue their research without questions: “[Doctor] did not explain why he was having someone draw blood from Deborah… he wrote a phone number and told her to use it for making more appointments to give more blood” (188). Deborah did not have the knowledge to understand the demands or requests the doctors made of her, and the doctors did not inform her explicitly.

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