Henrietta Lacks Research Paper

The Lacks ' Family Acknowledged But Not Compensated Henrietta Lacks was a black woman wronged of her rights and patient confidentiality in Johns Hopkins Hospital in 1951. She was a poor tobacco farmer, who after delivering her last child, Joseph, felt an unusual knot in her womb. When she thought the condition of her lump was more serious than she thought, she got it checked by Doctor Howard W. Jones at Johns Hopkins Hospital, "Jones found a lump exactly where she 'd said he would. He described it as an eroded, hard mass about the size of a nickel. If her cervix was a clock 's face, the lump was at four o 'clock," (Skloot 17). Being a victim of racism in the early 1950s, she didn 't get the necessary medical attention needed to treat her. Jones cut a small sample of her lump for a biopsy that showed results of her being diagnosed of cervical cancer or adenocarcinoma, a malignant tumor of the epithelial tissue in her cervix. During her first cancer treatment, Dr. Lawrence Wharton Jr. without Henrietta 's consent took two pieces of live tissue from which her cells: one piece of tissue from her tumor and one from healthy cervical tissue near the tumor. Even after her death, those cells continue to live today. These immortal cells were

Action needs to be taken to compensate the Lacks ' family for their loss and Johns Hopkins Hospital 's duplicity. With a multi-million dollar industry producing HeLa cells, you 'd think that you can share ten percent of the profits with the the source of the cell 's family. Laura Sanders wrote an article about Skloot’s book: The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, "Lacks ' family was left in the dark about the research, confused and angry about what they perceived as scientists making big money from stolen cells while the family couldn 't afford health care," (Sanders). The family finally managed to get foreclosure of Henrietta’s demise, but were utterly shocked of her cells still living and the fact that she wasn 't recognized