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The Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks By Rebecca Skloot

672 Words3 Pages

The chapter, "Illegal, Immoral, and Deplorable" from Rebecca Skloot's The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, details the process by which scientist Chester Southam ran experiments on people using Henrietta Lacks cancer cells without giving informed consent. Chester Southam is a virologist concerned about the safety of other scientist working with HeLa. Southam begins to conduct unorthodox experiments on patients that already have cancer. The patients never know that Southam is injecting them with harmful cells. The central idea of the text is that Chester Southam is an inconsiderate, deceiving, and selfish scientist that cares more about his benefit than others. This main idea of the text is developed throughout the text by the author's tone, …show more content…

Skloot's attitude toward the subject is revealed through her word choice. The chapter, "Illegal, Immoral, and Deplorable" from Rebecca Skloot's The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, states "He told them he was testing their immune systems; he said nothing about injecting them with someone else's malignant cells." Skloot's choice of the word 'malignant' shows that she feels that Southam is harming innocent people. At first, the audience might feel that Southam is using safe cells to help the patients. The word choice helps the reader understand that the cells Southam is using on his patients are in fact not obliging. Skloot continues to use tone to develop the central idea. The chapter, "Illegal, Immoral, and Deplorable" from Rebecca Skloot's The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, states "But Southam wasn't their doctor, and he wasn't withholding upsetting health information. The deception was for his benefit - he was withholding information because patients might have refused to participate in his study if they'd known what he was injecting." This shows that Skloot has a negative attitude toward the subject. Skloot starts off by saying that Southam was basically lying and deceiving for his benefit. It is now that the audience fully realizes that what Southam is doing is illegal, immoral, and

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Compared to the Lacks family, the Lacks knew their mother didn’t give consent for them to be using her cells for research. Skloot gives this example to the readers to compare both victims and their families suffered from misuse of informed consent. Even though this happen to the Henrietta in the 1950s, John situation is a little more current in time, it

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The themes in the novel tell a complete story of life, science, and the science of life. “It was very dehumanizing to be thought of as Mo, to be thought of as Mo in the medical records: ‘Saw Mo today.’ ” (Skloot 201). This animal like referral to patients then demonstrates just how far medical ethics has come. It also proves that these dehumanizing tactics are a major theme in the story.

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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 third main point of the body of the essay is the impact of HeLa cells on modern medicine. Skloot demonstrates the pioneering research and medical advancements made possible by Henrietta's cells, from the development of the polio vaccine to cancer research and beyond. However, she also emphasizes the continued ethical responsibility and awareness necessary when dealing with the use of human tissue in medical

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The injustice of taking Henrietta’s cells and using them for research without her consent or of her family for that matter; until 20 years later is incomprehensible. Many believe that the history of medical ethics such as the Hippocratic Oath and complying the federal law in protecting human research and confidentiality wasn’t yet recognized. All the same, the Lacks’ family isn’t given credit or acknowledgement for what Henrietta, has contributed to science, known as the HeLa cell line. Henrietta’s

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