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Henrietta Lacks Sparknotes

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The book of Henrietta Lacks is an eye-opening story. It opened my eyes to all the injustices and moral issues of the medical field back in the early 1900s, but it also showed me how fast the field advanced with Henrietta’s cells. The book was very interesting and went over various issues involving Henrietta and her family. The book tells about Henrietta Lacks who was a black woman born in Roanoke, Virginia on August 1, 1920. Henrietta had a terrible case of cervical cancer which ultimately led to her death in 1951. Before she passed away, doctors took some of her cells to culture and see if they could get them to grow. The cells were given to Dr. George Gey. He had one of his assistants, Mary Kubicek take the cells and prepare them and put …show more content…

First of all, Henrietta was an African American woman at the time when there was still inequality and segregation towards African Americans. This was really evident when she went in for her checkups at Hopkins and how she was never asked for her consent with her cell tissue. Also, the medical treatments at that time were not very safe or effective. An example would be when they used radium to try and treat her cervical cancer. Little did they know that radium destroys any cells it touches and it can also cause cancer. Along with that, the medical field had very few rules and was still unsanitary which was part of the problem with culturing cells until HeLa. There was also a lot of human experimentation at the time. In addition, there were multiple legal issues that revolved around this story like asking Henrietta for her consent when taking a sample of her cervical tissue for cell culture. They also never told her about the side effect of her cancer treatment about not having kids. Along with this, they started injecting HeLa cells inside of inmates without telling them what it was to see if they would develop cancer. To add to this there was a lot of controversy pertaining to human experimentation, and politicians had been repeated trying to pass bills and federal laws to regulate human experimentation. The bills though were repeatedly voted down in the U.S. That was part of the problem to why all

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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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In the book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks Henrietta had a normal life before she found that she had cancer and everything change. Henrietta was born on August 1, 1920. When she was four years old her mom died and her father took the family back to his hometown of Clover. His father took them back to Clover so he could send his ten children to different relatives to live with them. Henrietta went to live with his grandfather and her cousin David or most people call him Day.

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Some of those implications are, that her grave wasn’t labelled until 2010, Henrietta or her family didn’t know that Henrietta’s cells were being used for research, and Henrietta’s family got no profit from Henrietta’s cells, even though they were being sold. In my opinion, I don’t think those things should have been done. When Henrietta’s cells were taken she didn’t know about it. Two samples were taken.

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After eight months of treatment and excruciating pain from the tumors that kept appearing everywhere, Henrietta passed away. During that time scientists were developing a factory to mass produce her cells. As new developments with her cells kept occurring, her family was oblivious to it all until one day when Bobette, Henrietta's daughter in-law, ran into someone who shed some light on the subject. A brother of a friend unveiled how Bobette’s mother in-law’s cells were in his lab right now being tested for different things. Bobette then told the family which made Deborah, Henrietta’s daughter ver curious and worried about what they were doing.

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Introduction The topic of this paper will be the book “ The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks”. This paper will talk about five main points of the book that I thought were the biggest and most important parts of the book. Growing up As Henrietta was growing up, she lived with her grandfather and other cousins.

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An example from the book of applied research is injecting these malignant cells into the arms of sick and healthy patients (Skloot, 2010). Another reason for the use of her cells is because the growth of living cells has been unsuccessful prior to receiving the HeLa cells. It could be the lack of mitosis happening in the cell, and the cells have not been able to reproduce, and create copies of themselves. This is another reason, why the doctors have been keeping a close observation of Henrietta’s children, even making up excuses to collect their blood, and keeping everything a secret. This is important to research because you can have a higher risk of getting a disease through your family’s genes.

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About 60 years ago, before African Americans had much respect at all, there was a woman named Henrietta Lacks who was diagnosed with cancer in her cervix. Without asking for permission, Henrietta’s doctors took some of her cells from her cervix, and they took them to do more research on them and tried to grow them for the first time outside of a persons body. Because she was African American, she and the rest of her family were not respected by doctors, or many other people at this time. These cells later became very critical to medical advancements and scientific research for the rest of the world. But, the injustice of this situation raises a large controversy over whether or not this is justified.

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During the time Henrietta was growing up the rise of Ku Klux Klan and Jim Crow took place, as those who were of color faced enormous challenges every day. It is quite clear in the novel that Henrietta

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When first beginning The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, one would think it would be a biography about Henrietta, but it was so much more. It follows the Lacks family, as they learn about their mother, grandmother, sister, and matriarch. The only knowledge the Lacks family had of Henrietta was her medical records, and the family Bible. Deborah Lacks said, “Everybody in the world got her cells” (Skloot pg. 284). By examining the incredible way in which they grew and divided, she was right.

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Henrietta Lacks was a black tobacco farmer from the south who, in 1950, at the age of 30, she was diagnosed with aggressive cervical cancer. Lacks went to John’s Hopkins medical center for treatment for her cancer. In April of 1951, she underwent surgery to remove the larger tumor on her cervix. Henrietta Lacks, died three days following the surgery. Even though Henrietta Lacks died, her cells from the tumor have lived on and have made a major impact on the biomedical community.

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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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They fought and did not always get along, but one thing is for certain, family came first to them. Their importance of family shined through when Henrietta was first diagnosed with Cervical cancer. Although they were mostly uneducated, they asked questions and took the time to try to understand the disease Henrietta was diagnosed with. They were there for one another during the most difficult time of their lives. When a family member becomes ill, the rest of the family becomes your rock and shoulder to lean on.

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743 Words | 3 Pages

Her doctor collected cancerous cells and healthy cells from her cervix and gave them to the cancer researcher, George Otto Gey, who was trying to keep cells alive for more than a couple days. Henrietta endured intense radium treatments, but she still died at the age of 31, leaving her husband and five children behind. An amazing discovery was made Henrietta’s cell were immortal. Racism is prevalent in this book through the limited availability of healthcare, unethical behaviors of the doctors, and how racism affected her family. During this time, there was an extensive lack of medical care for colored people.

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She had five children when she fell ill and was devastated to learn her radium treatments left her unable to have more. She was protective of her family’s feelings, by keeping her cancer a secret from them so as not to worry them. Her family described her as an outgoing and beautiful woman of God. Henrietta and I have very little in common. I’ve never experienced prejudice because of my skin color or lived in a

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