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The Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks By Rebecca Skloot

1695 Words7 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. In her work, Skloot reveals Henrietta Lacks to be an African-American woman whose cervical cells were biopsied without her consent. These cells, known as HeLa (a combination of Lacks first and last name), have since been shared among various scientists and researchers and been the framework for ground-breaking research. Unlike other works on Henrietta Lacks, Skloot set out to tell …show more content…

What could not have possibly been imagined was how this could ultimately affect the family of Henrietta Lacks. HeLa cells were unlike any other cells. They grew in mass quantities, and continued to multiply and grow in culture whereas other human cells stopped. This eventually lead to interest in the Lacks family and their genetics. Some family members were afraid for their medical health and what would happen to their genetic material if they went to the doctor. Henrietta and her family’s rights were further violated when researchers published Henrietta Lacks’s medical records and even the family’s genetic information. This also would go on to have profound effect on Henrietta’s daughter, …show more content…

Patients have no rights to samples taken from them as they become biological waste. Yet it is not necessary for doctors to obtain consent to store the same tissues that are supposed to be biological waste and use the samples for research. The lines in bioethics are blurred and there should be stricter guidelines on how research should be conducted and exactly who should benefit from. I believe the tissue donor should receive some sort of compensation because it not for said cells, the research would not exist. As with HeLa cells, without Henrietta Lacks, there would be no HeLa cells nor any

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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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Henrietta Lacks was a thirty-one year old African American who had five kids and married her cousin David Lacks. Henrietta was diagnosed with cervical cancer, the doctors never informed Mrs. Lacks that her cells were to be tested on. The Lacks family was certainly not advised that Henrietta 's cells were growing at an incredible rate. Because of this, the cancer cells were shipped and bought across the world. The last 8 months of Henrietta’s death became a piece of history nobody would ever want to forget.

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Multiple times throughout the book it was mentioned that Henrietta’s biopsy took place 60 years ago and a lot of changes have been made to science and ethics. This book did a good job bringing up ethics in science and scientific achievements that have been made over the years, but in some ways it was sensationalized to get the family the recognition they feel they deserved. As a poor, black family, the Lacks’ were discriminated against. Even the medical treatments they received were often not the best treatments offered and they were often experimented on. Having the fear of being mistreated and used for experimentation made the Lacks’ even more upset about Henrietta’s death.

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About 60 years ago, before African Americans had much respect at all, there was a woman named Henrietta Lacks who was diagnosed with cancer in her cervix. Without asking for permission, Henrietta’s doctors took some of her cells from her cervix, and they took them to do more research on them and tried to grow them for the first time outside of a persons body. Because she was African American, she and the rest of her family were not respected by doctors, or many other people at this time. These cells later became very critical to medical advancements and scientific research for the rest of the world. But, the injustice of this situation raises a large controversy over whether or not this is justified.

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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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Today, we still have issues with the same problem. The doctors took advantage of the HeLa cells. They looked down because Henrietta was black, they thought they didn’t need to ask for her permission. The fact we still use these cells, shows a lack of respect to the colored. If we change this, we can show that there are ways to stop diversity and move on from the past.

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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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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 Lacks family had reporters and researchers approach them before, but none of them treated them the way Skloot did. Skloot, who learned about HeLa cells in highschool, was interested in the history and background of Henrietta, rather than the scientific facts. Although she was repeatedly rejected by the now cautious and paranoid Lacks family, who, at first, only saw her as a greedy reporter coming to bring even more upheaval into the family’s lives, Skloot was finally able to build a relationship with the family, namely Deborah, and invested into their lives, all the while writing the novel that would finally bring Henrietta’s story to light. Skloot had a different approach than the scientific community and media because she didn’t see Henrietta as an abstraction, but as an “universe with its own secrets,” which she so willingly shared with the

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1276 Words | 6 Pages

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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1096 Words | 5 Pages

In the reading of “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks”, the author Rebecca Skloot makes it well known that Henrietta Lacks, while a patient at John Hopkins Hospital samples of her cells was taken from her without her or her family’s knowledge or consent. We are made aware of this on page 33 “though no one had told Henrietta that TeLinde was collecting samples or asked if she wanted to be a donor — Wharton picked up a sharp knife and shaved two dime sized pieces of tissue from Henrietta’s cervix”. As a health professional, you are violating that patients’ rights and in this case the Lacks right to privacy were violated. The way that the lacks family’s right to privacy was the fact that Henrietta’s cells often referred to as the HeLa cells

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663 Words | 3 Pages

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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1020 Words | 5 Pages

This made the rest of the scientific world realized they'd just made a gigantic breakthrough in medical technology. Up until this time, scientists were unable to grow human cells in the culture of a Petri dish, but Henrietta’s cells multiplied at a feverish pace. Furthermore, increasing the amount of deadly cancer in her body. Henrietta’s cells also continued to grow and multiply outside her body in laboratory conditions.. Henrietta died at the age of 31, leaving behind a husband and five young children.

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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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