The Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks By Rebecca Skloot

An immortal cell, one which can never die, one of the great myths of life is no longer a myth. In fact, it’s been a part of science for 66 years now. Such an impossible, inconceivable thing came from a woman named Henrietta Lacks. Henrietta Lacks, a black woman who died at the age of 31 (and has been a huge contributor to medical science in the last 60 years) has endured the most adversity between a choice of her, Phineas Gage and Douglas Mawson. She was a woman who suffered from cervical cancer and died on October 4, 1951 (Johns Hopkins Magazine). Lacks’ cells were special, in that they would never die and always reproduce, creating medical miracles! Rebecca Skloot’s The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks provides many facts about her cells

In the book, there is a great amount of detail about Lacks’ cells and how doctors acquired them. “Doctors took her cells without asking.” Skloot’s book gives an overview of the book on the front, including that statement. The book states that doctors never asked for any kind of consent regarding her cell tissue, not even in the consent form for Lacks’s treatment. Another statement the book makes says Henrietta’s family did not learn of her ‘immortality’ until more than 20 years after her death. At this time, scientists investigating HeLa began using her husband and children in their research without informed consent. And though the cells had launched a multimillion-dollar industry that sells human biological materials, her family never saw any of the

Both men were white; Lacks was black and had to deal with prejudice and racism. While Mawson had to deal with great physical pain and his partners dying off in Antarctica, he had the choice to be an explorer. Lacks did not have a choice; she did not intentionally get cancer and her cells were taken without her permission. Gage had a metal rod shot through his head and was conscious throughout the event! He did not die and his social life was damaged and never repaired as that bit of brain that controlled his emotions was destroyed. However, as a railway foreman (where part of the job was to pack dynamite inside of blasting holes) he realized his job was dangerous, yet he still took it of his own free will. Lacks knew how dangerous cancer was, but she either unintentionally inherited it or got it through some other accidental means. Gage got his injury after a large portion of his life (which was most likely a good one, as he was both a good railroad foreman with a loving family); the injustice of Lacks’ life started when she was born in a colored ward in a hospital or in her own