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The Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks By Rebecca Skloot

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Recommended: Critical issues present in The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

In her nonfiction piece The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Rebecca Skloot explores the issue of patient compensation. Her intertwining of court cases, expert opinions from the medical community and examples like Ted Slavin. Skloot advocates for both ethical practice and scientific advancement in the medical field. Fully inform the patient this includes letting the patient know if they have unique tissues or what they are studying or testing for in the tissues. Have the patient sign a consent form when they are lucid. In the novel, the Mo cell line is an example of when Golde, a doctor let his greed for money interfere with his medical practice. Golde had not fully informed John Moore of his unique tissues and the massive monetary value they had. Eventually, Moore finds out and sues Golde. Eventually, Moore ended up at the Supreme Court of California and Skloot states they ruled in Golde’s favor “but the judge did agree with him on two counts: lack of informed consent, and breach fiduciary duty … The court said doctors said researchers should disclose financial interests in patient tissues”(Skloot 205). …show more content…

This allowed the vaccine to be cheap to research and have a low cost. Since it was cheap to research Albert Sabin was able to create an oral polio vaccine. The oral vaccine is now used to vaccinate people in developing countries. Around the 1950s there was a polio epidemic and the cheap cost made it available to everyone, and since 1979 there have been no reported cases of polio in the United States. It should be disclosed that at the time patenting a biological agent was unheard

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Henrietta Lacks Discussion Questions

700 Words | 3 Pages

What are the specific issues raised in the book—legally and ethically? Think about the 1980s John Moore case: the appeal court decision and its reversal by the California Supreme Court.   Issues that raised in the book are race issues, the legality of taking adventage of patients who’s family aren’t able to fight for the rights and benefit of their cells. According to California supreme court, Under the duty to obtain informed consent, “a doctor must disclose his intent in using a patient for research and economic gain.” 6.

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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 Themes

211 Words | 1 Pages

The themes in the novel tell a complete story of life, science, and the science of life. “It was very dehumanizing to be thought of as Mo, to be thought of as Mo in the medical records: ‘Saw Mo today.’ ” (Skloot 201). This animal like referral to patients then demonstrates just how far medical ethics has come. It also proves that these dehumanizing tactics are a major theme in the story.

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The Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks By Rebecca Skloot

1514 Words | 7 Pages

Throughout the Rebecca Skloot’s book, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, she described her investigation into the life of Henrietta Lacks, her immortal cell line, the ethical violations surrounding her case, as well as the major contributions to modern medicine and research her case provided. During the time of Henrietta’s treatment, both medical and research ethics were quite different; many values such as autonomy, justice, and beneficence were not as enforced, and were applied differently throughout different institutions and individuals of different demographics. Though investigating her case and other important cases surrounding the use of HeLa cells, Skloot acknowledges the unethical circumstances which filled Henrietta’s case and

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The Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks By Rebecca Skloot

1102 Words | 5 Pages

However, she along with her entire family had absolutely no knowledge of the use of her cells. This sparks the ethical controversy that surrounds the medical field, when and how should human

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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

1996 Words | 8 Pages

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.

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Phineas Gage And Henrietta Lacks Loss Of Sacrifice For Exploration

893 Words | 4 Pages

Lacks, was a woman who had her life taken by cancer. However doctors and scientists began to notice that her cells continuously produce (to this day in fact). Henrietta’s family was not informed about her “immortal cells” until 20 years after her death. To all readers disappointment, her family didn’t even get a portion, or even a small percent of the money earned from using her cell line to make various medical advances. These include the polio vaccine, the cancer drug tamoxifen, chemotherapy, gene mapping, in vitro fertilization, and treatments for influenza, leukemia, and Parkinson’s disease (from article).

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The Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks By Rebecca Skloot

1096 Words | 5 Pages

In the reading of Skloot, the big issue is the taking of Henrietta’s cells without her or family’s knowledge which is a violation of something very important and secret to Americans. The right to privacy is so important because a patient needs to know that a hospital, doctor, and nurse can be trusted with their medical information whether it is a small medical issue, or something major and embarrassing. You want to know that that information is not going to be out for the world to know or that information is going to be used somewhere else without your knowledge. In Provision 1 of the Guide to the Code of Ethics for Nurses, it is stated that “worth or value that people have simply because they are human not by virtue of any social standing, ability to evoke admiration, or any particular set of talents, skills, or powers.” (Flower, pp.8)

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The Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks

1172 Words | 5 Pages

Skloot works hard throughout her time with Deborah to reiterate what her goals are: Letting the world learn the history of HeLa cells and Henrietta herself. At a later point during their research, Deborah begins interrogating Skloot with the same questions she has asked several times before which stem from her inability to trust others. She wants to make sure Skloot would not reveal certain personal information they gathered. All because of a smile on Skloot’s face, Deborah is triggered and begins asking ‘“Who you working for?”’ and proclaiming ‘“You’re lying!”’ (283)

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The Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks Analysis

936 Words | 4 Pages

The injustice of taking Henrietta’s cells and using them for research without her consent or of her family for that matter; until 20 years later is incomprehensible. Many believe that the history of medical ethics such as the Hippocratic Oath and complying the federal law in protecting human research and confidentiality wasn’t yet recognized. All the same, the Lacks’ family isn’t given credit or acknowledgement for what Henrietta, has contributed to science, known as the HeLa cell line. Henrietta’s

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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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What Are The Ethical Issues In The Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks

1123 Words | 5 Pages

Throughout time as human population has continued to grow, there is an increasing need for a societal structure that addresses large health concerns as well as maintain infrastructure to provide health related services to the public. In our society today this is known as public health. Public health is the umbrella term for all services, preventions, and promotions of health related factors that directly relate to humans and animals as well as the environment around them. Due to the wide spectrum of responsibilities related to public health, many stories have arisen that directly relate to the abilities and processes that exist under it. The book called The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks directly relates to the ethical aspect of public health.

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The Pros And Cons Of Hela Cells

595 Words | 3 Pages

Ever since a sample of Henrietta Lacks’ tissue was taken from her, without permission, the world of medicine has evolved, and multiple discoveries have been made. From the polio vaccine to figuring out how many chromosomes each human holds, HeLa cells have had some involvement. But all of this research came from a result of a violation to the medical code of ethics. The question of whether or not all research and findings that were a result of a violation of the medical code of ethics should be destroyed, has become very difficult to answer as we make more and more advances in the medical field. Personally, I believe that the way Henrietta’s cells were collected was a violation, however destroying all of the findings from it would be more detrimental to society than beneficial.

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Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks Essay

919 Words | 4 Pages

In the case of Henrietta Lacks and her family, the mistreatment of doctors and lack of informed consent defined nearly 60 years of the family’s history. Henrietta Lacks and her children had little to no information about serious medical procedures and the use of Henrietta’s cells in research. Henrietta’s cells launched a multibillion-dollar industry without her consent and doctors even took advantage of her children’s lack of education to continue their research without questions: “[Doctor] did not explain why he was having someone draw blood from Deborah… he wrote a phone number and told her to use it for making more appointments to give more blood” (188). Deborah did not have the knowledge to understand the demands or requests the doctors made of her, and the doctors did not inform her explicitly.

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