Having the opportunity to discuss the impact of medical research performed on Henrietta Lacks’ cells with doctor George Guy would be an experience like no other. Through the use of Henrietta Lacks’s cells, George Guy created an industry that would fuel research throughout the scientific community. When Henrietta Lacks was admitted to the hospital for radiation treatments, doctors took samples of her cervical cancer cells. Henrietta was not informed that one of the two samples was sent to George Guy, a scientist researching the immortalization of human cells. Guy soon realized that these cells were able to grow outside of the human body, they even grew rapidly. This was the first time that Guy and his research team had come close to being able to grow human cells inside a dish, without them dying off. Guy continued to grow these cells in his lab, still not informing …show more content…
Guy had a multitude of opportunities to discuss this matter with Henrietta and her family. George Guy was extremely invested in the scientific research of growing and culturing human cells, inside a lab. The Lacks family was a poor, African American family that was suffering from large medical bills and segregation. Did the fact that these cells had come from an African American female impact the use of these cells to scientists? Was Guy wanting to keep the profit of his success to himself and not wanting to share the multibillion-dollar industry with the Lacks family? I also wonder if George Guy ever regretted not telling Henrietta Lacks’s family that her cells had been circulating in the scientific community for decades. When the family did find out about the industry that had erupted due to Henrietta’s cells I do not think they were upset with not getting a share of the profit, but they were upset about the information being withheld from