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Impact Of The Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks

1387 Words6 Pages

Lance Langel
11/18/14
P.8
Bibliography
Fahy, D., & Nisbet, M. C. (2013). Bioethics in popular sciance: evaluating the medica impact of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks in the biobank debate .Retrievedfrombiomedcentralhttp://www.biomedcentral.com/1472- 6939/14/1
Due to biobanks, there has been many bioethical concerns regarding, disclosure, ownership, privacy, control, and consent. As an opportunity to engage an audience about these ethical issues, bioethicists have used Rebecca Skloot's book "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks" (Fahy & Nisbet, 2013). To engage the audience, researchers conducted an analysis of relevant articles and transcripts produced by organizations and publications in the U.S. and in other countries (Fahy & Nisbet, …show more content…

Henrietta grew up in Virginia on a tobacco farm and was raised by her grandfather. When she was 30 years old she noticed a large knot in her lower stomach, and later found out it was cervical cancer. While staying a John Hopkins, doctors took pieces Henrietta's tissue from her cancerous tumor. Though they took the tissue, Henrietta nor her family gave permission for her cells to be taken (Miller, 2010). Dr. George Gey head of tissue-culture at John Hopkins could now grow a cell line that could help find a cure to cancer, because of Herietta's cells in her tissue. When he finally started growing the cells, he immediately started distributing them to other doctors and researchers. This article is much like the other articles I've annotated because it deals with the ethical issues of informed consent, and talks about Henrietta Lacks. If I was in Henrietta’s place and I was still alive I would sue John Hopkins and George Gey for stealing cells out of my body without my …show more content…

These cells were obtained in 1951 at John Hopkins University during a biopsy performed during her treatment for cervical cancer (Troug, Kesselheim, & Joffe, 2012). Also, this article describes the property rights of human tissue. There are many cases much like Henrietta's when it comes to right of human tissue. An, example of this is John Moore v. Regents of the University of California Troug, Kesselheim, & Joffe, 2012). In regards to the ownership of tissue, this article also, describes the investigator's obligations to individuals from who they seek for research (Troug, Kesselheim, & Joffe, 2012). These obligations include; consent, compensation for effort and burden, and rights to revenue stream (Troug, Kesselheim, & Joffe, 2012). This article is very similar to those I have read because it refers to informed consent, but in this article it goes more in debt into what informed consent actually means, and the actions that go with it. Informed consent is a very big deal to me, because I would want doctors to tell me what treatments they are planning, and if I was going to be part in a research

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