Henrietta Lacks cells are immortal, they have been used to develop the polio vaccine, cloning, and gene mapping (Skloot). Henrietta’s cells originated from a cancerous tumor. When she died the tumor was removed without her family’s knowledge. Henrietta had a total of five children. The father of these five children was her cousin David Lacks. Joe Zakariyya Lacks was her youngest child and was born right before she was diagnosed with cervical cancer.
After Henrietta had died family came to visit but brought Tuberculosis with them. Tuberculosis is a potentially serious infectious disease that mainly affects the lungs (Tuberculosis). Most of the family was infected with the disease including Joe. Being infected with the disease left Joe in the hospital a whole year.
Ethel and Galen was a couple that came to help take care of the younger children when their mother passed and when their older brother Lawrence was drafted. The children’s mother did not like the wife; Ethel. Henrietta often referred to her as “that hateful woman.” Everyone in the family also felt she was jealous of Henrietta. Ethel and Galen gave the children a hard time. Out of all the mistreatment Ethel gave the children she mistreated Joe the worst. She would beat Joe for no reason at all, and would tie him up and leave him in the basement. In result of this Joe grew
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At this time Rebecca Skloot was writing the book “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. His personal opinion of the matter was his birth was a miracle, and that the doctor George Gey had basically stolen from the family. Zakaraiyya claimed “I believe what they did was wrong. They lied to us for twenty-five years, kept them cells from us.” Zakaraiyya later stated in their interview that “People don’t know we just as po’ as po’…. I hope George Grey burn in hell. If he wasn’t Dead already, I’d take a black pitchfork and stick it up his