How The Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks

The experimentation of human cell culture has been a familiar scientific practice for many years; it has helped develop the polio vaccine, tested the infection of several viruses in humans, and has been used to further research on cancer, AIDs, and the effects of radiation. Despite these seemingly miraculous developments in science, many are unfamiliar with the woman behind these discoveries: Henrietta Lacks. In her novel, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Rebecca Skloot investigates the life of Henrietta Lacks, a poor African-American tobacco farmer diagnosed with cervical cancer in 1951. Her cells, which were found to be “immortal” (continuously growing in cell culture), were extracted without her consent, and have become one of the

Skloot describes how Tuskegee researchers “recruited hundreds of African-American men with syphilis, then watched them die slow, painful, and preventable deaths,” even after realizing “penicillin could cure them” (50). The alliteration draws attention to the words “painful”, “preventable”, and “penicillin”, and emphasizes the outrageous mistreatment and poignant fatalities of the patients at Tuskegee Institute, appealing to pathos. The alliteration creates sympathy towards the poor, black men: they were discriminated against, were uninformed and experimented on without consent, and being “poor and uneducated”, desperate for medical treatment, were taken advantage of (50). The author’s inclusion of the Tuskegee study and emphasis on the mistreatment of African-Americans illustrates how Henrietta was not the only incident of discrimination and lack of patient consent in the 20th century. The study clarifies what Skloot specifically means by the the immorality of lack of permission by providing an additional example outside of Henrietta, and effectively serves as support for her

Skloot recounts how “news spread like pox through black communities: doctors were doing research on black people, lying to them, and watching them die” (50). The comparison of “news” spreading like “pox” emphasizes how quickly and easily rumors circulate within the African-American community (50). Skloot specifically addresses the “black communities” in order to illustrate how only African Americans seemed to care and address this issue, while the white researchers and the white community simply ignored this atrocious act of discrimination. This disregard emphasizes how discriminatory scientists and doctors were in the 20th century, despite their respectful and ethical reputation in today’s society. Skloot’s example of the Tuskegee Institute provides an additional example of discrimination in the medical community towards blacks outside of Henrietta’s case, and strengthens her claim that the extraction of HeLa cells was unethical, by comparing it to this instance of horrific offenses towards impoverished blacks, who were desperate for any sort of medical