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Skloot Ethics

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Humans have fought against many diseases throughout history. Scientist have performed excitements on various test subjects to gather information on how to fight disease. Many of the test subjects had questionable morals and ethics surrounding them, such as HeLa cells. In Rebecca Skloot’s contemporary biography, The Immortal life of Henrietta Lacks, Skloot revealed with appeals to ethics the complex story over Henrietta’s cells. Skloot gave a cautionary piece of history of how racism and dissocia in the scientific community harmed a family. Many black patients faced racism. Many unethical medical treatments happened due racial inequality. Skloot described Henrietta’s treatment as the same treatment as whites, with “biopsy” “radium” and radiation” treatments, juxtaposed with the treatment of blacks described with “fewer pain medication” and “higher mortality rates” (64). Skloot appeals to ethics by having given an example of racism, a principle of ethics considered wrong by many. …show more content…

Dissociation with subjects caused harm with the subject’s families. The Lackses suffered from racial inequality as many black families did. The Lackses had little money, and ironic to the situation HeLa cells sold for “Twenty-five dollars, sometimes fifty” while the Lackses received no money from the cells of a deceased member (81). To bring attention to issue facing the Lackses, Skloot displayed the lack of monetary compensation. The lack of compensation and involvement caused the animosity of the Lackses towards the hospital and scientist involved with HeLa. The lack of involvement also displays with the state of Deborah and Zakariyya described as “trance,” “mouths open,” and “cheeks sagging” after having learned of the fate of Henrietta (265). Henrietta’s children grew up not knowing and understanding what happened to heir mother, which Skloot used to display the sufferings of the Lackses. Dissociation with families of scientific subjects caused harm to the

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The Lacks family had reporters and researchers approach them before, but none of them treated them the way Skloot did. Skloot, who learned about HeLa cells in highschool, was interested in the history and background of Henrietta, rather than the scientific facts. Although she was repeatedly rejected by the now cautious and paranoid Lacks family, who, at first, only saw her as a greedy reporter coming to bring even more upheaval into the family’s lives, Skloot was finally able to build a relationship with the family, namely Deborah, and invested into their lives, all the while writing the novel that would finally bring Henrietta’s story to light. Skloot had a different approach than the scientific community and media because she didn’t see Henrietta as an abstraction, but as an “universe with its own secrets,” which she so willingly shared with the

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The book lays bare the painful history, what can be called as disquieting in present ethical views, on how tissue samples were obtained without consent and how the family was kept in the dark about HeLa cells for many years since Lacks’ death in 1951, which evoked questions and issues on privacy and ethics in the practice of medical and scientific research. Even so, during the that time it was not considered unethical to obtain living tissue samples from a patient without consent or to provide unauthorized medical

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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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Racism in The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks Imagine your mother, sister, wife, or cousin was diagnosed with cervical cancer and you believed the doctors were doing everything in their power to help her. Only later you discovered her cells were used for research without consent and she was not properly informed of the risks of her treatment due to her race. This story happened and is told by Rebecca Skloot in The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. Skloot use of narrative and her writing style enhances the understanding of the story. Henrietta Lacks was a young black woman who was diagnosed with cervical cancer at John Hopkins Hospital.

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Bushra Pirzada Professor Swann Engh-302 October 4th 2015 Rhetorical Analysis: The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks written by Rebecca Skloot tells the story of a woman named Henrietta Lacks who has her cervical cancer. It further goes to tell the audience how Henrietta altered medicine unknowingly. Henrietta Lacks was initially diagnosed with cervical cancer in 1951; however, the doctors at John Hopkins took sample tissues from her cervix without her permission. The sample tissues taken from Henrietta’s cervix were used to conduct scientific research as well as to develop vaccines in the suture.

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During this part of the book, the Lackses learn for the first time about Henrietta’s cells being used for research; rather than receiving this news from a health-care professional, they learn this information from Bobbette Lacks’ friend’s brother-in-law. It is clear that the family has been left in the dark for a long time about Henrietta. As they receive more information about her cells, questions raise in their mind about

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Skloot 's personal relationships with the family members further detract from the unbiased, informational theme the book once had when Skloot herself enters the story as another character. Her intimacy with Deborah leads Skloot to not only greatly sympathize with her, but also to move the whole focus of the latter half of the book to their shared experiences. Chapter 34, for instance, focuses mainly on the emotional and even physical upheavals between her and Deborah when Skloot attempts to include Henrietta 's medical records in her book. Although Skloot 's intended purpose was to capture Deborah 's sensitivity concerning her mother, at this point in the story it had already been well established that the subject of Henrietta was not easily dealt with by the Lacks family. From this chapter on, the story has completely lost the engaging scientific ethos it once described and concludes as one about Skloot and her dealings with Deborah.

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On January 29, 1951, an African American woman named Henrietta Lacks was diagnosed with Stage 1, Epidermoid carcinoma of the cervix, after her visit to John Hopkins Hospital. Henrietta began radium treatments which was proven to kill cancer cells and a safer option than surgery, according to her physician Howard Jones. Jones increased Henrietta’s dose of radiation in hopes to decrease the size of the tumors however the treatments were proven ineffective and her skin was burned blacker while the pain grew unbearable until she passed away on October 4, 1951. She left behind her husband David “Day” and five children: Lawrence, Elsie, David Jr, Deborah, and Zakariyya (Joe). This paper will focus on how Henrietta Lack’s and her family’s experience

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In the case of Henrietta Lacks and her family, the mistreatment of doctors and lack of informed consent defined nearly 60 years of the family’s history. Henrietta Lacks and her children had little to no information about serious medical procedures and the use of Henrietta’s cells in research. Henrietta’s cells launched a multibillion-dollar industry without her consent and doctors even took advantage of her children’s lack of education to continue their research without questions: “[Doctor] did not explain why he was having someone draw blood from Deborah… he wrote a phone number and told her to use it for making more appointments to give more blood” (188). Deborah did not have the knowledge to understand the demands or requests the doctors made of her, and the doctors did not inform her explicitly.

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In the book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, education plays a substantial role in what occurs throughout the book. Many major events are related to people not understanding what is happening to them. Skloot brings up the topic ’Lack of Education,’ frequently and this affected Henrietta's treatments, and how her family viewed the situation, and how the black community viewed scientist overall. In many occasions lack of education causes a major event to happen, “she didn't write much, and she hadn't studied science in school,”(pg 16) with little education Henrietta had no idea what was wrong with her. Without Henrietta or her family knowing symptoms of certain diseases Henrietta does not go to the hospital till the end.

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The Lacks family would probably disagree with this argument, since their experience with a cell “abduction” has led to neglect, withholding of information, and a dehumanization resulting from lack of credit and recognition given to Henrietta Lacks. Despite all of the grievances and injustices, the Lacks cannot deny the scientific uses and progress enabled by the cells; one can only wonder what would have become of medical research if the HeLa line had not been

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