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The Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks By Rebecca Skloot

722 Words3 Pages

While, Rebecca Skloot endured ten years of writing her book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, which included a lot of research along with many trials. Skloot visited many scientific labs, hospitals, and mental institutions which included many different types of people from many different places, with many different backgrounds; including nobel laureates, grocery store cashiers, convicted felons, and a professional con artist. While Skloot was gathering research pertaining to Henrietta’s family, she was accused of making facts up and lying about the information she was compiling. She was both physically and mentally slammed for the story she was trying to document and the information she was trying to gather to do so.
After decades, and …show more content…

Rebecca skloot, author of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, spent almost a decade gathering research in order to display Henrietta Lacks’s true story in writing. Skloot first found out about Henrietta Lack’s in her science college course at the age of sixteen. After hearing a brief description of Henrietta, with very little information, Skloot had some questions for her professor. When Skloot’s professor did not have any answers for her regarding Henrietta, she decided to take it upon herself to find out everything she could about Henrietta and her family. Skloot dedicated her life to researching Henrietta and the Lack’s family when there was no information about them.Skloot faced many challenges including her father becoming sick along with being accused of conspiracy, however she did not give up on Henrietta’s story. Rebecca Skloot did everything she could to find research and information about Henrietta and her family, she was even able to speak to some members of Henrietta’s family after much trial to get a hold of them. Rebecca Skloot was able to display Henrietta’s story from different viewpoints, helped Henrietta's family get ready for the book release, Made them aware of their platform they now would have and prepared herself and the family for any publicity and questions after the book release. Rebecca Skloot is in fact the very reason Henrietta’s story is heard today and her family now has a credible source for their voice to be heard

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In the Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot, the author demonstrates the harsh realities that many African Americans faced in the medical and scientific field during the mid 20th century. The author shows the unjust practices of this time period through interviews with the Lacks family and medical professionals. These harsh realities are proven when Skloot talks to Henrietta’s family. Henrietta’s husband, Day, explains how they took samples from Henrietta’s body without consent when Skloot writes, “Day clenched his remaining three teeth. "I didn't sign no papers," he said.

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Sasha Amos 07/27/2017 Rebecca Skloot tells a story on Loretta Pleasant also known as Henrietta Lacks, a black woman who had cervical cancer. Without her consent, her doctors took her cells and used them to create HeLa. The Lacks family had no knowledge of what Henrietta’s cells had done.

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Jade Sherwin May 14th, 2018 Essay test Rebecca Skloot’s book “The immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks” tells the story of Henrietta Lacks a young mother, a descendant of slaves, whose suffering changed the course of medical research and made life healthier for the rest of us. Henrietta was diagnosed with cancer in numerous ways the Lacks family’s right to privacy was violated. The Lacks family’s right to privacy was violated by people exposing the Lacks’s information “Newspapers and magazines “published articles about Henrietta , one of the pivotal figures in the crusade against cancer.”

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Resulting in Lacks’s mother’s death, caused her father to separate all their siblings with different relatives to be raised. He did this because according to Skloot, that is because Lacks’ father didn’t have the patience. Therefore, Lacks ended up staying with her grandfather, T Henrieatta’s ability to move through life changing experiences such as losing a parent, is a very conflicted story to read or listen to. In the works of Rebecca Skloot's novel “The Immortal life of Henrietta Lacks,” she discovers the opulent life of Henrietta Lacks that she was trying to discover. Henrietta was a poor black woman whose cells had a massive impact on blood cancer research.

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Language Arts Question 4 In the beginning of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, the author, Rebecca Skloot, stated her goal and reason of writing the book. Learning biology in college, her professor mentioned Henrietta and her cells very briefly. Fortunately, this was enough to catch Skloot’s curiosity. She desired to learn more about the woman responsible for so many scientific breakthroughs.

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Throughout the process of getting the information, the author was accused of getting all the information for money. The family thought she was being paid to gather all the information about Henrietta. From what I have read

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This nonfiction book The Immortal life of Henrietta Lacks was written by Rebecca Skloot. Skloot gives us a glimpse of the life of a young African American woman Henrietta Lacks as she briefly went through the healthcare system with cervical cancer in the 1950s. While Henrietta is the main character of this book, Skloot also highlighted the racial disparities in the healthcare sector and other industries at the time and painting a vivid picture of dying communities and the struggles of the descendants of Henrietta Lacks. Although, a lot of the book is about Henrietta Lacks, it is also about her daughter Deborah learning more about her mother and finding out the truth about her aunt Elsie. Henrietta was a mother of five who sort medical attention

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The Unintentional Story of Deborah Lacks Negative incidents in one’s past can have an enormous impact on that individual’s future. A person should not linger on the negative, they should try to learn from their past and move forward, and look for positive aspects in life. In Rebecca Skloot’s, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, proves that the memories and struggles that Deborah Lacks endured, impacted the way that she lived her life, and helped with molding her identity. “I used to get so mad about that where it made me sick and I had to take pills. But don’t got it in me no more to fight.

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Furthermore, the person whomst is being written about passed away long before the book was written, meaning there was no direct consent from the Henrietta even if her family approved of it. If she was still alive, she may not have wanted such detail in her biography. Skloot’s accuracy was a means in order to maintain a sense of reality in her text- no sugar coating- so that the reader can have the closest idea to an unbiased view. Whether the theft was justified by saving numerous lives or not is up to the audience.

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Despite the wrongdoings Henrietta Lacks was put through her cells did a lot to help advance science. Her cells helped develop different types of vaccines, which such as her daughter faced. A lot of good and bad came out of Henrietta’s

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The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks tells the story of Henrietta, an African-American woman whose cells were used to create the first immortal human cell line. Told through the eyes of her daughter, Deborah Lacks, aided by journalist Rebecca Skloot. Deborah wanted to learn about her mother, and to understand how the unauthorized harvesting of Lacks cancerous cells in 1951 led to unprecedented medical breakthroughs, changing countless lives and the face of medicine forever. It is a story of medical arrogance and triumph, race, poverty and deep friendship between the unlikeliest people. There had been many books published about Henrietta’s cells, but nothing about Henrietta’s personality, experiences, feeling, life style etc.

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The Immortal Life of Henrietta Slacks taught the readers a few different life lessons. Many of which everyone may be able to relate to in their life right now. Rebecca Skloot’s did a wonderful job describing Henrietta's life to the readers. Henrietta Slack was a young black mother who discovered she had cancer in 1951. Her cells were taken without her knowledge to change the future of science and cancer.

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Racism in The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks Imagine your mother, sister, wife, or cousin was diagnosed with cervical cancer and you believed the doctors were doing everything in their power to help her. Only later you discovered her cells were used for research without consent and she was not properly informed of the risks of her treatment due to her race. This story happened and is told by Rebecca Skloot in The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. Skloot use of narrative and her writing style enhances the understanding of the story. Henrietta Lacks was a young black woman who was diagnosed with cervical cancer at John Hopkins Hospital.

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Bushra Pirzada Professor Swann Engh-302 October 4th 2015 Rhetorical Analysis: The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks written by Rebecca Skloot tells the story of a woman named Henrietta Lacks who has her cervical cancer. It further goes to tell the audience how Henrietta altered medicine unknowingly. Henrietta Lacks was initially diagnosed with cervical cancer in 1951; however, the doctors at John Hopkins took sample tissues from her cervix without her permission. The sample tissues taken from Henrietta’s cervix were used to conduct scientific research as well as to develop vaccines in the suture.

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In the book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, education plays a substantial role in what occurs throughout the book. Many major events are related to people not understanding what is happening to them. Skloot brings up the topic ’Lack of Education,’ frequently and this affected Henrietta's treatments, and how her family viewed the situation, and how the black community viewed scientist overall. In many occasions lack of education causes a major event to happen, “she didn't write much, and she hadn't studied science in school,”(pg 16) with little education Henrietta had no idea what was wrong with her. Without Henrietta or her family knowing symptoms of certain diseases Henrietta does not go to the hospital till the end.

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