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Immortal Cells: Henrietta Lacks By Rebecca Skloot

386 Words2 Pages

Henrietta Lacks, also known as HeLa, is the woman with the immortal cells. Those famous cells eventually would lead to breakthroughs in studies about leukemia, influenza, Parkinson's disease, etc. However, the other side of the story is hardly known. Rebecca Skloot and Deborah Lacks, Henrietta’s daughter, work together to find the unethical methods in which the Lacks family was treated.

Racism/Sexism- African-Americans were treated like lab rats and were tested on without their permission or knowledge. Especially black women, like Henrietta, were pushed away in the women’s rights movement for being colored and pushed away from the civil rights movements for being women.
Cells- Henrietta’s cells are “immortal” meaning they reproduce rapidly and don’t stop doing so. This led to major breakthroughs in the medical world and allowed scientists to experiment effects of toxins and cures.

“If the whole profession is doing it, how can you call it 'unprofessional conduct'?" (Skloot, 134)

Skloot wrote this book to unveil the injustices that the Lacks family and many other African-Americans went through. The key passage shows that many medical professionals used the “everyone else is doing it” defense to justify their unethical behavior. The doctors dehumanized Henrietta and used her cells to make millions and become famous. One of the themes of this book is …show more content…

I was drawn into this book since it gave me so many opportunities to learn more about science. Even though some of the descriptions of Henrietta’s cervical cancer were graphic, it helped me learn more about biology which is what I’m interested in. For example when it said “They cut HeLa cells apart and exposed them to endless toxins, radiation, and infection. They bombarded them with drugs, hoping to find one that would kill malignant cells without destroying normal ones.” (58), I learned how they used Henrietta’s cells to help millions of

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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 book “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks” written by Rebecca Skloot revolves around an African American woman who began life as a poor tobacco farmer, but soon after being diagnosed with cervical cancer in 1951 would unknowingly become one of the most important people in history. Unfortunately many would come to simply know her as “HeLa” the first “immortal” human cell line instead of another human being who had the right to know what doctors would soon do to her. She was strong woman and great mother to five unique children; Elsie, Lawrence, David (Sonny), Deborah, and finally Zakariyya (born Joe). The story itself tends to transition between the past and the present day. It gives us the story from both the perspective of Henrietta’s

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The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks is a book that includes her biography, then her childhood to her tragic death; the story of her family over various decades; Skloot’s research and her relationship with the Lacks family, especially Deborah; and the story of the HeLa cells. Henrietta Lacks was known by scientists as HeLa was a poor black tobacco farmer whose cells were taken without her knowledge in 1951, and then became one of the most important tools in medicine. They were necessary for the development of the polio vaccine, cloning, and much more scientific developments. A doctor at Johns Hopkins took a piece of her tumor without her consent and then sent it down to scientists who been trying to grow tissues in culture for decades. Henrietta's

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This reading consisted of an excerpt from The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. In this excerpt the author has visited the home of the living relatives of Henrietta. They show distaste and skepticism towards her due to her being white and asking questions about their mother, Henrietta Lacks. However they seem to warm up to her and tell her about what had happened to their mother. Henrietta awas a cancer patient, and when she died the doctors had asked permission to use her cells, on the premise that it would help prevent her children from dying from the same illness.

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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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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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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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