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The Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks Analysis

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Just think for a moment, how would you feel if you had to spend most of your lifetime at home? Some humans find it difficult to live or even talk to disabled people without even thinking of how they might feel. This could’ve been me if I only didn’t grew up with a disabled family member. My uncle who is named Pavel has mental health problems which are not curable, doctors don’t know how to help. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks is about woman who died because of unknowledgeable doctors. And there is a question that pops up right away, do doctors ever get knowledge in what they are doing today? Do they really want to help?
I grew up in a loud house with lots of family members. I lived with my mom, grandparents and uncle. Of course, the house was loud because of me, but this story isn’t about me. Coming back to the life story of my mentally unhealthy uncle, Pavel. My uncle got scared of some loud voice back when he was young. It all came out as a panic attack whenever he walks. As a …show more content…

Pavel was a normal young boy who liked to play soccer with his friends as well as going to school. Everything went pretty well until he came home with a white like a snow face. Pavel didn’t want to tell anything, he simply ate and went sleep. On the other day he began having some issues with talking and eating. As the days went by, Pavel’s parent realized that something could’ve happened. Pavel didn’t want to say anything until one day he suddenly fell because of simply seeing a cat. He was horrified and seemed like having a trouble to even stand up. His parent didn’t know what to do, they went to hospitals, churches and even soothsayers but none of them could help. As I asked more details, my grandma didn’t wanted to tell anything more. I believe she told me only half of the story and I feel like something might’ve happened more than that. My grandma is hiding a

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In the book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks Henrietta had a normal life before she found that she had cancer and everything change. Henrietta was born on August 1, 1920. When she was four years old her mom died and her father took the family back to his hometown of Clover. His father took them back to Clover so he could send his ten children to different relatives to live with them. Henrietta went to live with his grandfather and her cousin David or most people call him Day.

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The book is divided into three parts. The first part talks about Henrietta Lack’s life. Henrietta Lacks went to John Hopkins on September 19, 1950 because she felt a lump in her cervix. A few days later, she was diagnosed with cervical cancer. Then the doctors performed a surgery and later gave her radiation therapy.

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Multiple times throughout the book it was mentioned that Henrietta’s biopsy took place 60 years ago and a lot of changes have been made to science and ethics. This book did a good job bringing up ethics in science and scientific achievements that have been made over the years, but in some ways it was sensationalized to get the family the recognition they feel they deserved. As a poor, black family, the Lacks’ were discriminated against. Even the medical treatments they received were often not the best treatments offered and they were often experimented on. Having the fear of being mistreated and used for experimentation made the Lacks’ even more upset about Henrietta’s death.

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Sonali Sagar Block: 2B May 12th 2015 The Degradation of Morals and Ethics In the book, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks the author Rebecca Skloot tells us about a non-fiction story of an African American women who is diagnosed with cervical cancer and how the medical community exploited her for use of her “immortal” cells. From then onwards the cells have been used for widespread medical advancement and research. There is no denying the good that has come from this as even the polio vaccine was developed from these HeLa cells. Moreover, it has also been aiding with finding a cure for cancer as well as assisting with further research on AIDS.

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“They certainly give very strange names to diseases.” - Plato Rebecca Skloot wanted to get this word across about how race, class, ethics, and other factors play a role in the science world today. Especially with the need of biological samples for research. When Skloot first found out about the cells, her father had gotten sick with an illness that was undiagnosable. Once it was determined he had brain damage, he had enrolled in a medical study.

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Intro 2: Though, science, immorality, and poverty are some of the main themes in The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, memory also illustrates a central idea of this novel. Each family member had different pieces of information that Rebecca Skloot needed for her book. However, Deborah Lacks and Zakariyya Lacks, Henrietta’s fourth and fifth child contributed to the majority of the story. Deborah held several of her mothers’ documents such as medical records, news reports, and interviews. At the beginning of the story, she was skeptical of giving Skloot the documents.

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The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks starts in 1951 with a young woman of four. She told her close friends that she had “a knot inside me”. Her friends strongly encouraged her to go to the doctor, but she denied the advice. She kept this pain from her family so they wouldn’t worry about her, and then she became pregnant with her fifth child Joe. Shortly after she birthed Joe, she started experiencing external bleeding and stated she had a hard lump inside her womb.

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The issue of privacy has been one dating back to the beginning of society. In order to protect it we have erected walls around us and called them homes, fences and called them territories, borders and called them countries. As the modern day arrived, society innovated to the point that ownership and privacy are no longer clear. Science has developed at a rate where morals and laws cannot keep up, more specifically, in the medical department. Such a problem is detailed in Rebecca Skloot’s book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.

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2015 Read and Response: The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks Throughout the Lacks’ family history there has been nothing more but absence of information and deceitfulness. The prolonged journey of finding out who exactly Deborah’s mother was and how she changed science was all but easy. One of the most common messages throughout the book was the conflict between individual rights and scientific exploration from high, authoritative figures such as scientists, doctors and the research community.

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"The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks" is a profoundly moving and thought-provoking drama television film that combines historical and ethical exploration with a strong focus on human relationships and resilience. Directed by George C. Wolfe, the film showcases the exceptional acting talents of Oprah Winfrey and Rose Byrne, who bring depth and emotion to this incredible story. Based on Rebecca Skloot's bestselling book, the film delves into the life of Henrietta Lacks, a woman diagnosed with cervical cancer in the 1950s, and the unprecedented consequences of her cancer cells, known as HeLa. Since its premiere on HBO on April 22, 2017, the film has continued to spark meaningful conversations about consent, race, and the ethical challenges faced

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In the memoir, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, the author Rebecca Skloot reveals the life story of Henrietta Lacks and her cells’ revolutionary impact on the medical industry, while also raising concern about the greater underlying social issues consistent in Western medicine. The memoir follows the life of Henrietta Lacks, a black woman living with cancer in 1950s America, and the theft and utilization of her cells after her death. Skloot also writes about the ripple effects HeLa cells have on her family and the injustice they continue to face today. The memoir, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks sheds light upon the importance of bioethics and informed consent while calling attention to the anti-feminist and racist past of post-colonial

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The purpose of literature is to move the reader. Some authors turn to laughter or tears to make the most significant impact. In The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, a biography by Rebecca Skloot, Skloot uses a pathos appeal to incite the reader to pity characters in the book, such as Deborah and Elsie Lacks. As Rebecca Skloot and Deborah go looking for information on Elsie, Deborah’s sister, they go to the Hospital for the Negro Insane.

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In Chapter 12 of Harper Lee’s, To Kill a Mockingbird, there are many events and situations in which irony is used to support the theme of the chapter. An example of this is in the very beginning of the chapter, when Scout is concerned about how distant and moody Jem is acting, and asks Atticus, “’Reckon he’s got a tapeworm?’” (Lee 153), to which Atticus replies no, and that Jem is growing. This is dramatic irony because the readers understand that Jem is acting oddly because he’s growing, but Scout doesn’t know this until she asks Atticus about it. This quote supports the theme of Chapter 12 by showing when Jem started to grow distance from Scout, getting aggravated with her and telling her to stop bothering him, and shows how the children

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Family, for most people, is defined as a sort of safe haven for people to go to. For others, families may be fragmented, split, or may have wrong ideals as a whole. Broken families, while they may have a long lasting effect on the spouses, can also have a detrimental, long-lasting effect on the children of these marriages which can lead to certain mental illnesses. For example, in the story of the Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Deborah faces the emotional effects of her mother’s death. Other stories such as “A Rose for Emily”, show how Emily 's fathers parenting techniques and a lack of a mother figure burdened her future.

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Scott Hamilton once stated, “The only disability in life is a bad attitude.” Disability is only an obstacle in a person's life, but it does not set the identity of that person. John Steinbeck's novel shows how disabled people are treated differently by writing about their heartbreak and sorrow. Many individuals with disabilities feel that a disability is a wall blocking them from achieving their goals. In our society, people are told what to be and what to do with their disability, but one should have the choice to carve their pathway to success.

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