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The Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks By Rebecca Skloot

1037 Words5 Pages

In the book, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, the story of a impoverish African American woman is revealed in beautiful and amazing detail. The book consists of three main sections, wherein Rebecca Skloot describes the various aspects of Henrietta Lacks’ legacy. The three sections are life, death, and immortality. The purpose of the book was to expose the hidden story of the HeLa cells used in research across the country. This also exposes the ethical issues of what was basically a cell harvest on Henrietta Lacks without her proper understanding and consent. These ethical issues can further be explored and analyzed, which is the purpose of this paper, through modern day scientific ethics.
First of all, who was Henrietta Lacks and what …show more content…

Through this research scientists and doctors were able to make some of their greatest discoveries, namely the Polio vaccine. The amount of uses for these cells was enormous. Due to this the cells were readily reproduced and sent to labs far and wide. Some estimate that if someone could possibly take all of the HeLa cells and put them onto a scale they would weigh over 50 million metric tons. In the book they even talk about how there were enough cells produced to cover the entire earth in multiple layers of HeLa cells at one point. Her cells were numerous and the discoveries followed suit. Her cells helped learn more about cloning, gene mapping, in vitro fertilization, and so much more. Almost the entire pharmaceutical industry was built by HeLa cell experiments. Everything sounds so great until you learn that these cells were cultured and spread without Lacks’ proper consent, and neither her nor her family were ever compensated for Ms. Lacks’ contribution to the world. In fact, they were never even informed of this occurring until 25 years …show more content…

Nobody wants to say that the good of many is unimportant when it comes to what they want out of fear of sounding selfish. But let’s be honest. Is it really okay to completely violate someone’s right to their own body just to help science? From all the good that came from this violation of rights many are tempted to say yes. From a utilitarian point of view where weighing the costs and benefits of alternative course of actions leads to a decision that maximizes the general benefit to the community and minimizes the impact and drawbacks to whoever may be involved, it seems almost like it is acceptable to say that the scientists did nothing wrong. This is true in a way. Without HeLa cells we may never have found the vaccine to Polio, found ways to fight the flu, or made the myriad of discoveries thanks to these cells. While it is acceptable that they took her cells, it is unacceptable in the way that they did it. There is no reason that she should not have been informed. If anything, Henrietta Lacks should have been given the opportunity to know where parts of her body were being taken. At the very bare minimum she should have at least been compensated for her contribution to the scientific

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What could not have possibly been imagined was how this could ultimately affect the family of Henrietta Lacks. HeLa cells were unlike any other cells. They grew in mass quantities, and continued to multiply and grow in culture whereas other human cells stopped. This eventually lead to interest in the Lacks family and their genetics. Some family members were afraid for their medical health and what would happen to their genetic material if they went to the doctor.

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The HeLa cells not only survived, they grew intensely and kept right on growing as much as their given space would allow. It seemed like the cells would never stop growing, thus came the label of the immortal cells (Skloot, 2010). HeLa cells became a very important part of scientific research, and Henrietta’s name became well-known among Gey’s colleagues. On November 2, 1953, the real name behind the HeLa cells was leaked by the press, but they got it wrong, Henrietta Lakes was reported as the source of the cells in the Minneapolis Star. Gey and Dr. TeLinde, the cervical cancer specialist at John Hopkins, decided to allow their story about Henrietta to be told in a more accurate account, but they wanted to withhold her name.

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Born in Roanoke, Virginia on August 1, 1920, Henrietta Lacks would one day unknowingly be the reason for one of the most important cell lines in medical research. Henrietta Lacks became the source of HeLa cells after her death on October 4, 1951 (aged 31), cells which were the first immortalized cell line in history; immortalized cells are cells that will reproduce indefinitely under specific conditions. While Henrietta’s cells were and continue to be used to treat many illnesses, there was never any consent given from Henrietta herself, or any of her family. To this day, no portion of the billions of dollars made from HeLa cells ever found it’s way to Henrietta’s family. The medical ethics in the 1950’s are very questionable in comparison

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And somewhere along the line, HeLa cells came from Helen Lane. Whether this was done to keep Henrietta’s identity a secret or not, give credit to Henrietta Lacks, who was an African American woman during the 40’s, Henrietta’s identity was kept a secret. Apart from that, I have already mentioned the hundreds of innovations brought about by Hela cells. Only for Henrietta’s children and spouse to never receive any credit, or compensation for that matter. The Lacks family has paid large amounts for medical coverage and

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Henrietta Lacks’s daughter Deborah once stated “If our mother cells done so much for medicine, how come her family can’t afford to see no doctors?” (Skloot 9). The lack of ethics also points to another theme of Henrietta’s story, discoveries are more than the discovery itself, there are always people behind them. Deborah’s words also emphasize the human side

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In the 1950s the first ‘immortal’ human cells were grown from a cancerous tissue sample taken from Henrietta Lacks, a poor black woman, without her knowledge or consent. She had died shortly after, at the unfortunately early age of 31, of a severe case of cervical cancer. Henrietta had a list of ailments that included neurosyphilis, gonorrhea, and HPV the leading cause of her cervical cancer and, ultimately, her death. The hospital that had diagnosed her cancer, Johns Hopkins, had supposedly been one of the best hospitals in the country, but it participated in discriminatory and amoral research practices when treating African Americans. Not only taking taking Henrietta’s cells without her consent, but injecting them and other cancer cells into patients without their knowledge.

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Does saving the human race from extinction matter if you did not get permission to take the materials necessary? When an African American women had her cells stolen without her consent she had no knowledge as to how she was going to benefit the world, let alone the science industry. This woman is Henrietta Lacks. Her cells and her legacy will never be forgotten throughout the world. In The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Rebecca Skloot presents the scientific progression of HeLa cells with study cases, such as the study of viruses and the development of the polio vaccine, in order to prove to the reader that HeLa was beneficial towards science and was not illegal in any ethical way.

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