The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks overviews the story of a young black woman who dies a painful death duo to an aggressive invasive type of cervical cancer, something doctors were currently studying and developing way to combat it. Rebecca Skloot, the author, takes us to journey to see through the eyes of the Lacks family. Many would call what was done to them unfair, but as Skloot lets us know, this was common practice (and still is in many cases) during that time. The important thing was that the ignorance of who was responsible for the cells that we call “immortal,” the cells that have given us a “Rosetta stone” for medical research, is now diminish, this was especially important to the Lacks. The book focuses mainly on the story of Henrietta’s …show more content…
Rebecca uncovers that when Henrietta received treatment for cancer, a sample tissue was cut from the tumor growing in her cervix without Henerietta’s knowledge. Dr. TeLinde, the leading doctor in the study of cervical cancer, took tissue samples from women in public wards without their consent. This was common practice back in that time, and TeLinde figured that it was a fair exchange since the people in the public ward of Hopkins Hospital were receiving treatment without payment. Skloot lets us know that TeLinde was in the middle of proving that invasive tumors developed from noninvasive tumors. His research would be further helped by Gey and Margaret, who worked for over 30 years in producing an immortal lineage of human cells outside of the body. Henrietta’s cells became the first to manage to live outside of the body in a culture created by Margaret, and these cells are still growing to this day. They have been packaged, shipped and sold countless times. The HeLa cells have made the biggest contribution to human kind in regards of medical research on cancer, polio, and many more viruses. There is a report of the insane experiments done to these cells, and since they are not a person, ethical limitations are nonexistent. HeLa opened the gates to