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Henrietta Lacks Essay

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In Rebecca Skloot’s compelling narrative, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Skloot begins the novel with a quote by Elie Wiesel, “We must not see any person as an abstraction. Instead, we must see in every person a universe with its own secrets, with its own treasures, with its own sources of anguish, and with some measure of triumph.” The quote gives the reader a reason to explore the unknown life of Henrietta Lacks. Throughout the book, Skloot delves into the life of Henrietta, a young African-American woman whose cells were taken without her consent. Her cells would later become the only line of immortal cells. Skloot changes the world’s perspective of the Lacks family as abstractions in her novel. From the beginning, Henrietta was disregarded …show more content…

Gey and Dr. TeLinde, doctors at Johns Hopkins, received a letter from Roland H. Berg, a press officer, explaining how he planned to write an article about the woman behind HeLa cells. Dr. Gey replied “I have discussed the matter with Dr. TeLinde, and he has agreed to allow this material to be presented in a popular magazine article. We must, however, withhold the name of the patient” (Skloot 106). Johns Hopkins doctors wanted to withhold Henrietta’s personal life and records, so they gave the public a fake name, Helen Lane. Doctors and other medical professionals didn’t see Henrietta as a person, instead, they saw her as a cell line and her contributions to medical advancements. Not only was Henrietta Lacks an African-American during the 1940s, but she was highly uneducated, immediately she was seen as unworthy. When Dr. Lawrence Wharton Jr., the surgeon on duty, examined her cervix, doctors ignored Henrietta’s right to know her cells were going to be extracted. On page 33, it states “--though no one had told Henrietta that TeLinde was collecting samples or asked if she wanted to be a donor-- Wharton picked up a sharp knife and shaved.tissue from Henrietta’s cervix” (33 Skloot). At that moment, Henrietta was no longer seen as a patient, but as a possible medical

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On Henrietta’s deathbed Gey tells her that her cells will make her immortal. The tuskegee institute began giving cells for polio research but soon after began sending cells to any scientist who wanted them The hela cells were used to create many scientific breakthroughs and understanding of cells such as the use of freezing cells for delivery and the standardization of cell culturing Skloot and Deborah 1990 1999 Skloot reaches out to Roland Pattillo after coming across a collection of scientific papers compiled by Pattillo about Henrietta, after she decides she wants to write about

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When removed during her biopsy and then cultured without her permission, her cells began to reproduce rapidly and require more and more culture medium to consume as they grew. They thrived in the lab and they were the first human cells ever in history to do so. Meanwhile, Henrietta, 31, African-American, and a mother of five, continued enduring painful and damaging radiation treatment in the hospital’s “colored only” ward. After Henrietta’s death, her cells, named HeLa after the first two letters of both her names, went on to become a celebrity of virology, benefiting more people than will ever be truly realized. Scientists have grown about 50 million metric tons of her cells, helped sustain and build thousands of careers, and tens of thousands of scientific

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In her work, Skloot reveals Henrietta Lacks to be an African-American woman whose cervical cells were biopsied without her consent. These cells, known as HeLa (a combination of Lacks first and last name), have since been shared among various scientists and researchers and been the framework for ground-breaking research. Unlike other works on Henrietta Lacks, Skloot set out to tell

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People did not know the truth about HeLa because Hopkins hospital hid the fact that they took living samples of Henrietta’s cells without consent. “-Add quote-“they did it to continue and advance in their research. From HeLa the scientific world was booming with questions. “–Add quote-“they asked questions such as where was HeLa from and who’s the patient was with the cells. Not to mention Hopkins did not release Henrietta name because they did not want people to find out who she really was.

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Born in Roanoke, Virginia on August 1, 1920, Henrietta Lacks would one day unknowingly be the reason for one of the most important cell lines in medical research. Henrietta Lacks became the source of HeLa cells after her death on October 4, 1951 (aged 31), cells which were the first immortalized cell line in history; immortalized cells are cells that will reproduce indefinitely under specific conditions. While Henrietta’s cells were and continue to be used to treat many illnesses, there was never any consent given from Henrietta herself, or any of her family. To this day, no portion of the billions of dollars made from HeLa cells ever found it’s way to Henrietta’s family. The medical ethics in the 1950’s are very questionable in comparison

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022300 Courtney Davis Mrs. Allinder IB Literature 10 October 2016 Emotional Ties Created In The Reader Thesis: In the creative non-fiction book, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Rebecca Skloot, creates emotional ties to the reader through the character, Deborah. Topic Sentence: Deborah was spoken about by Skloot before Deborah appeared as a live character with dialogue to form a founding idea about Deborah in the reader. Evidence: When Skloot had finally received Deborah’s number from Pattillo, Pattillo gave Skloot a list of what to do and what not to do when “dealing with” Deborah. He told her not to be aggressive or “clinical”, not to force Deborah to do anything, and definitely “don’t talk down” to her because “she hates that”.

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Henrietta Lacks’s daughter Deborah once stated “If our mother cells done so much for medicine, how come her family can’t afford to see no doctors?” (Skloot 9). The lack of ethics also points to another theme of Henrietta’s story, discoveries are more than the discovery itself, there are always people behind them. Deborah’s words also emphasize the human side

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Language Arts Question 4 In the beginning of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, the author, Rebecca Skloot, stated her goal and reason of writing the book. Learning biology in college, her professor mentioned Henrietta and her cells very briefly. Fortunately, this was enough to catch Skloot’s curiosity. She desired to learn more about the woman responsible for so many scientific breakthroughs.

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Upon reading further on the development of the HeLa cells, it is thus possible that Henrietta 's cell couldn 't just grow at rates that were ordinary between the second and third visiting. However, readers can conclusively assert that Henrietta Lacks had not thoroughly treated and this can be attributed to the color of her skin. Even before people learn of HeLa Cells as well as the use of Henrietta’s tissue without their consent, they were shocked learning what they thought was true that African Americans were being

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This reading consisted of an excerpt from The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. In this excerpt the author has visited the home of the living relatives of Henrietta. They show distaste and skepticism towards her due to her being white and asking questions about their mother, Henrietta Lacks. However they seem to warm up to her and tell her about what had happened to their mother. Henrietta awas a cancer patient, and when she died the doctors had asked permission to use her cells, on the premise that it would help prevent her children from dying from the same illness.

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Despite the wrongdoings Henrietta Lacks was put through her cells did a lot to help advance science. Her cells helped develop different types of vaccines, which such as her daughter faced. A lot of good and bad came out of Henrietta’s

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The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks tells the story of Henrietta, an African-American woman whose cells were used to create the first immortal human cell line. Told through the eyes of her daughter, Deborah Lacks, aided by journalist Rebecca Skloot. Deborah wanted to learn about her mother, and to understand how the unauthorized harvesting of Lacks cancerous cells in 1951 led to unprecedented medical breakthroughs, changing countless lives and the face of medicine forever. It is a story of medical arrogance and triumph, race, poverty and deep friendship between the unlikeliest people. There had been many books published about Henrietta’s cells, but nothing about Henrietta’s personality, experiences, feeling, life style etc.

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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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Bushra Pirzada Professor Swann Engh-302 October 4th 2015 Rhetorical Analysis: The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks written by Rebecca Skloot tells the story of a woman named Henrietta Lacks who has her cervical cancer. It further goes to tell the audience how Henrietta altered medicine unknowingly. Henrietta Lacks was initially diagnosed with cervical cancer in 1951; however, the doctors at John Hopkins took sample tissues from her cervix without her permission. The sample tissues taken from Henrietta’s cervix were used to conduct scientific research as well as to develop vaccines in the suture.

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