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The Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks By Rebecca Skloot

1996 Words8 Pages

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 …show more content…

And although, these privacy protections did not cover genetic information, 12 years later congress passed the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act (GINA) to fill the gap. (Stump) The National Institute of Health’s (NIH) now requires strict ethical standards including informed consent from all researchers seeking funding. These are steps in the right direction but just like anyone working in the medical field would tell you, there is still more to be done to ensure complete patient privacy and informed consent is the norm in every branch within the medical community. Whereas it took many years for the medical community to acknowledge the violations and origin of Henrietta’s cells it reassuring to see the progress that has been made to stamp out bad ethical behaviors. In the United States today, ethical requirements now include non-maleficence, (not harming), beneficence (benefiting or doing good); autonomy (the patient has the right to choose or refuse medical treatment); and, justice (patients are treated impartially, without bias on account of gender, race, sexuality and wealth). Also reassuring is that a lot of effort is being made to safeguard the interest of Henrietta’s descendants and as a result, all NIH funded research on HeLa cells can only be published with the approval from a board that includes two of her

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The Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks By Rebecca Skloot

611 Words | 3 Pages

When removed during her biopsy and then cultured without her permission, her cells began to reproduce rapidly and require more and more culture medium to consume as they grew. They thrived in the lab and they were the first human cells ever in history to do so. Meanwhile, Henrietta, 31, African-American, and a mother of five, continued enduring painful and damaging radiation treatment in the hospital’s “colored only” ward. After Henrietta’s death, her cells, named HeLa after the first two letters of both her names, went on to become a celebrity of virology, benefiting more people than will ever be truly realized. Scientists have grown about 50 million metric tons of her cells, helped sustain and build thousands of careers, and tens of thousands of scientific

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Summary Of The Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks

1243 Words | 5 Pages

Consent is important because what if Henrietta didn’t want her tumor to be used for research. What if she did want it to be taken out? The patient should know and agree to anything happening to his or her body. This is a controversial situation because her family has never received any compensation for this discovery or for any other uses of the HeLa cells. The family did not have any kind of insurance and had a slew of other health issues they need help with but got nothing.

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The Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks By Rebecca Skloot

1695 Words | 7 Pages

Introduction In this book, author Rebecca Skloot sets out to give a biography of the late Henrietta Lacks. She had first heard of Henrietta Lacks in her freshman biology class at 16 years old. After only learning her name and skin color, Skloot became very much curious. Twenty-two years later, all her research was published as The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.

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Immortal Cells: Henrietta Lacks By Rebecca Skloot

386 Words | 2 Pages

Henrietta Lacks, also known as HeLa, is the woman with the immortal cells. Those famous cells eventually would lead to breakthroughs in studies about leukemia, influenza, Parkinson's disease, etc. However, the other side of the story is hardly known. Rebecca Skloot and Deborah Lacks, Henrietta’s daughter, work together to find the unethical methods in which the Lacks family was treated.

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The Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks By Rebecca Skloot

572 Words | 3 Pages

These cells, however, turned out to be unique in that they were able to grow and multiply outside the human body, making them invaluable in medical research. The movie follows the journey of journalist Rebecca Skloot, as she investigates the story of Henrietta Lacks and her "immortal" cells. Skloot travels to Baltimore to interview Henrietta's family and learn more about her life and legacy. She uncovers a complex and often painful history that sheds light on issues of race, class, and medical

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The Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks By Rebecca Skloot

722 Words | 3 Pages

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.

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The Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks By Rebecca Skloot

1263 Words | 6 Pages

TIC673 HeLa Assignment 2018 In one of the best seller novel, “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks” the author Rebecca Skloot describes about the first human immortal cells that lived in laboratory culture and about the story of black, 31-year-old woman from whom these cells were obtained. The cells which not only proved to be most important in the field of medicine but also brought medical revolution were obtained from her without her or her family’s knowledge leading to the most debatable ethical issues. The following essay would describe the cell’s contribution to science, how they were obtained and some of the ethical issues violated. Henrietta’s cells did much good for the society.

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Henrietta Lacks Cells Alive For Medical Industry Benefits

1326 Words | 6 Pages

Lacks’ Cells Alive for Medical Industry Benefits The story of Henrietta Lacks in this reading is fascinating. By using Ms. Lacks’ cells, medical science has developed many cures. By one woman contributing her cells decades ago without her knowledge, on an involuntary basis, the impact has become mind-boggling. At the same time, it is disheartening and shaming to know that Henrietta’s family was unable to pay for medical attention for her.

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Summary: The Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks

903 Words | 4 Pages

The book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, written by Rebecca Skloot and examines the life of Henrietta Lacks and her peculiar situation with her mysterious cells. This paper will focus on chapter two in the novel and how it becomes the most important part of the book when it comes to understanding Henrietta’s life story. Chapter two is called “Clover (1920-1942)”, the chapter itself dissects the early life of Henrietta and the challenges she had growing up. In this chapter, it goes over the gender, economic, and racial obstacles that greatly impacted her. It is important to understand the socio-economic conditions that led Henrietta to be treated less than human.

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The Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks By Rebecca Skloot

1217 Words | 5 Pages

After her death in 1951, for six decades, the name Henrietta Lacks was not a recognized name in the eyes of the society, but cells containing her DNA did. HeLa Cells are the first immortal human cells, cancerous cells taken from Henrietta’s cervix never die, in fact they multiply every twenty-four hours. After spending 10 years to perfect her first book, author of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Rebecca Skloot encapsulated the life, the death, and aftermath of Henrietta Lacks’ life. Throughout her book, Rebecca Skloot takes the reader on an extraordinary journey through the lens of the Lacks family, dealing with controversial issues regarding science, ethics, race, and class. The journey of the Lacks families started in Henrietta’s hometown Clover, Virginia then progressed to the “colored” ward of

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The Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks By Rebecca Skloot

1480 Words | 6 Pages

In her book, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Rebecca Skloot reveals how Henrietta Lacks, an African American woman diagnosed with cervical cancer, was exploited by the medical community for the development of the immortal “HeLa” cells that have since become the most widely used cells for medical research and advancement from the 20th century to the present day. The HeLa cells have since led to the formulation of the polio vaccination along with groundbreaking research on diseases such as AIDS, gene mapping, in vitro fertilization, and possible treatments for various forms of cancer in humans (Zielinski). However, this breach of medical ethics in regards to removing Lacks’ cervical cells without her knowledge or consent has led to questions

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The Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks By Rebecca Skloot

1150 Words | 5 Pages

Some family members still want to sue the people gaining money from HeLa, but others simply want people to see who Henrietta was (327-328). Deborah, Henrietta’s daughter, told Skloot, “Like I’m always telling my brothers, if you gonna go into history, you can’t do it with a hate attitude. You got to remember, times was different. (276)” So many advances have been made in science and medicine that the majority of people on the Earth have been affected by HeLa cells at least on time in their lives.

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The Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks By Rebecca Skloot

631 Words | 3 Pages

In “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks” by Rebecca Skloot , African Americans were racialy segergated , tested on without consent, and how the lack of education effected African Americans because it allowed them to get taken advantage of.

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The Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks By Rebecca Skloot

1331 Words | 6 Pages

Henrietta’s Story- One of Great Miracles History is made everyday by everyone; however, some become more prominent in it than others. Whether this be through their actions or their beliefs, it influences generations to come. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot begins when a young African-American mother, friend, and wife made an enormous contribution to science and medicine. Yet, this incredible journey all started in a time when Jim Crow laws were still in place, and racial slurs were thrown out daily; an abhorrent era where not all were seen as equivalent with equal rights. In a time where racism was very prevalent, not all history made during this time reflected that view.

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Henrietta Lacks And Ethics

462 Words | 2 Pages

The origination of HeLa cells, used in biomedical research for a potential cure for cancer, had made many ground breaking discoveries in science; all thanks to one woman, Mrs. Henrietta Lacks. The history of Mrs. Lacks’s contribution to these studies raised many ethical issues concerning healthcare practice. In the short film, The Way of All Flesh, we learn how these cells were revealed by direct violation of ethical principles. During the 1950s, matters regarding informed consent practices were in their beginning stages of implementation.

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