The Hela Cells: The Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks

Imagine being forced to hand your unlocked phone to a complete stranger. How would that make you feel? You’d probably wonder why this stranger is holding your phone, what they’re going to look at, and how they will use your information. What if this phone was your genetic makeup? Would you allow scientist to pass around your information and use it for research without your consent? As shown in the award-winning book by author Rebecca Skloot: The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, a mother by the name of Henrietta’s cells caused scientific commotion, without her or her family even knowing it. Although the HeLa cell brought many incredible scientific discoveries, Henrietta and her family were manipulated while companies made profits. Although

They failed to inform the family, since they weren’t planning to make a profit from the cells and originally referred to them as Helen Lane’s cells. Although the cell’s supply company started out as a non profit, a company named Microbiological Associates began selling HeLa in exchange for money. The cells traveled everywhere, and the hospital continued to offend the Lacks family by publishing Henrietta’s medical records. This was a violation of Henrietta's privacy and an immoral action which many hospitals and doctors are against. Usually, most hospitals are afraid of disclosing personal patient records, because it would cause other patients to feel unsafe disclosing information to them in fear that they will tell others. The hospital even began to involve Henrietta's children, by tricking them into giving blood samples to test if they had the same cancer that killed Henrietta. In reality, the hospital was just using them in hopes of figuring out the genetic makeup of the HeLa cell. Aside from getting tricked by the Hospital, the Lacks family have also encountered people they tried to use their vulnerability to their advantage. For example, a man named Cofield convinced them he could sue John Hopkins for malpractice, but this man had lied to them. He was actually a convict who sued millions of people just looking for a profit. In other words, he had no

Not to mention times were different when it came to handling human rights. For example, as mentioned in the book, “...the Nuremberg Code and the American Medical Association Code of ethics, which clearly said that doctors should keep patient information confidential, the Hippocratic Oath wasn’t law,” meaning many doctors could do as they pleased when testing patients. It wasn’t standard practice to inform patients that their information was being used in medical research. As a result of this, the HeLa cells were discovered and have been used for good. For example, they are responsible for helping advance the polio vaccine, chemotherapy, cloning, gene mapping, and much more. In order to make these accomplishments, in 1952, the Tuskegee Institute opened the first “Hela Factory” which supplies cells to laboratories and researchers all over the world. They operated as a non profit, meaning the hospital was not looking for money, they were looking to make new positive discoveries. Additionally, the cells are like superheroes. The HeLa cell is the first cell to travel through postal mail and the first cell to be cloned. HeLa cells even made it to