The Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks By Rebecca Skloot

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks written by Rebecca Skloot is a national bestseller and is considered one of the most engaging pieces of nonfiction literature of all time. Through her own perspective, Skloot is able to give the reader insight on the life of Henrietta Lacks, both prior and during her battle against cervical cancer. In doing so, Skloot captures the corruption of the medical professionals in the 1950s, while also giving details of her personal account with the Lacks family. Overall, Skloot retells the story of Henrietta Lacks, while also incorporating central aspects such as violation of ethics, discrimination against minorities, corruption of medical professionals, and scientific advancements

Since Henrietta lived in a time when discrimination was not uncommon, the reaction of the public today would differ greatly from if the book had been published in the 1950s. For example, on the treatment of African Americans, Skloot states, “they recruited hundreds of African-American men with syphilis, then watched them die slow, painful, and preventable deaths, even after they realized penicillin could cure them”. Clearly, this quote demonstrates the racial discrimination present during the time of Henrietta because African Americans were often treated as test subjects, instead of as human beings. In addition, doctors were considered to be trustworthy individuals because of their high degree of education. Even if African Americans were aware of their unfair treatment, they accepted racial segregation as common practice and were grateful to be receiving any form of treatment. In contrast, the majority of people today feel as though blacks were mistreated. As stated in the novel, "this was a time when 'benevolent deception' was a common practice - doctors often withheld even the most fundamental information from their patients, sometimes not giving them any diagnosis at all". This quote is from the author, Skloot; someone who shares more modern

For example, in cases of violations of ethical guidelines, doctors were rarely caught because the rules were not strongly enforced. Skloot comments, “Like many doctors of his era, TeLinde often used patients from the public wards for research, usually without their knowledge. Many scientists believed that since patients were treated for free in the public wards, it was fair to use them as research subjects as a form of payment”. White doctors were often not opposed to poor treatment of the minorities because they believe the research done would be beneficial to the scientific advancement around the world. Even if patients would take corrupt doctors to court, the judge usually ruled in favor of the medical professional. To demonstrate this, Skloot mentions, “the ruling didn’t prevent commercialization; it just took patients out of the equation and emboldened scientists to commodify tissues in increasing numbers”. It becomes apparent that taking a doctor to court in the 1950s often had no effect, except that the doctor would be more reluctant to share his or her research with fellow scientists. Today, however, there are more laws in place and if a doctor was found to have broken the law, her or she would lose their medical