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Henrietta Lacks Essay

782 Words4 Pages

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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Summary Of The Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks

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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Henrietta Lacks Research Paper Outline

917 Words | 4 Pages

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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611 Words | 3 Pages

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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Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks Research Paper

418 Words | 2 Pages

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks is the biography of Henrietta Lacks, her children, and her cells, and the whole premise of the book is based on the injustice committed on them (Skloot). As explained in the book, the Lacks family have suffered great injustice from five angles; first, researchers collected cancer cell samples from Henrietta Lacks without receiving, or even requesting, consent, and tried growing them in the lab where they were found to be immortal (Skloot). Second, no one asked permission of the Lacks family to use the cells for research, or even notified anyone in the Lacks family that cells collected from Henrietta were still alive until 15 years later (Skloot). Third, after finally informing the Lacks family that Henrietta

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The Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks By Rebecca Skloot

1695 Words | 7 Pages

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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1176 Words | 5 Pages

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426 Words | 2 Pages

In "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks" by Rebecca Skloot, the progression of the plot and its central conflicts can be thoroughly understood through the perspective of racism, which includes systemic injustice, medical abuse, cultural mistrust, and racial discrimination. Despite the widespread use of HeLa cells in research and the advancements in the field of medicine, there was no acknowledgment of Henrietta or her pivotal role in the public. The fact that Henrietta was not mentioned in the news and that Gey did not mention her name on TV further highlighted how her identity was erased from the story of HeLa, “Despite the spread of HeLa and the flurry of new research that followed, there were no news stories about the birth of the amazing

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211 Words | 1 Pages

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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The Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks Essay Questions

1444 Words | 6 Pages

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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638 Words | 3 Pages

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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Henrietta Lacks Without Her Consent Essay

663 Words | 3 Pages

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1020 Words | 5 Pages

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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743 Words | 3 Pages

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