Henrietta Lacks: Sexually Transmitted Disease

Group 2 Hela Essay Henrietta Lacks was a normal, young African American woman who lived a simple life by taking care of her family, including her husband (and also her first cousin) Dale, and their five children. Not long after she delivered her fifth child, Henrietta developed an aggressive cervical cancer caused by the sexually transmitted disease, HPV, which quickly caused her to lose her fight and pass away, yet her death and cancer cells also had a new beginning in the aspect of science: her cells taken from a biopsy continued to divide and became one of the most important cell lines in medical history. In the aspect of her children, however, they had a new beginning to face without their mother, and that eventually lead them down the road of many medical illnesses and mental disorders. To understand Henrietta’s infections and how they are related to her children, it is imperative to research HPV and syphilis. HPV stands

The main way to find out if a patient has cervical cancer is to perform the Pap test. In the Pap test, a doctor will swap a sample of cells from the cervix and send it off to a laboratory for them to detect if there are any abnormalities. To confirm that the abnormalities are related to HPV, the doctor may then perform a DNA test of the Pap test sample. This DNA test is used to inform the doctor on whether the patient has a high-risk HPV which can cause cancer. This specific test is recommended for women who are at least 30 years old. There is one other method called the vinegar solution test, which is used to spot out and identify flat, hard to see, lesions that are possibly precancerous. The vinegar solution is applied to the genital areas, which in turn, makes the lesions white and visible to see (“HPV