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The Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks Essay

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The book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks is a very touching book to me. This book has really made me think about how patients were treated back then in hospitals. It also has showed me how this book shows of how things were and have changed because of the Henrietta cells. The only thing is that Henrietta did not know that her cells were going into research labs. Since she did not know that they used her cells in research there was no way for her family to try to make money off it to help them finically. Also, the time period plays a huge factor in why her cells were used without her consent. Therefore, this leads me to say that the finance code of ethics, the selling of other people cells, and how your medical records are worth more …show more content…

This case has brought up how much money these companies are making from selling peoples cells. The case is about a guy named John Moore who has leukemia. He goes to the doctor to get his spleen taken out since that is where the leukemia cell keeps growing (ANNAS, 1990). While in surgery the doctor took his spleen out and took the cells from it. He took the cells so he could make a cell line that came from his spleen (ANNAS, 1990). The only problem is the patient never knew that he was going to take the cells and sell them to make profit. Since the doctor took it without him knowing it and since the patient never got any money from the cells it has caused huge debate on whether or not the cells are still property of the person after they leave your body. The court in this case ruled that the patient gets control over his cells and tissues whether they can use them or not (Skloot, 2010). Then the doctor appealed saying this that when they leave your body and are in the hands of the doctor then they own the right of your cells (ANNAS, 1990). This leads to me say that I feel that the cells are each patient’s property unless them give them to some else with consent. In the article written by ANNAS had a guy named Justice Broussard who backed me up by saying that since the patients don’t have a right to their cells when they leave their body and only people that have rights to them are the drug and medical companies (ANNAS, 1190). This just proves that us patients are losing finically since we do not get a cut of the profit these companies and doctors get from our cells in research. It also breaks the fairness principle in the CFP

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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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Henrietta Lacks, an African American tobacco farmer from southern Virginia, was diagnosed with cervical cancer at 30 years old. During her treatment at John Hopkins Hospital, one of the doctors took a piece of her tumor without her knowledge or consent and sent it to scientists who had been unsuccessfully attempting to grow tissues in culture for decades. There is no explanation as to why, but her cells never died. To this day they are still alive and have been used throughout the years to great advantages in curing diseases. Henrietta’s cells have played a part in some of the world’s most important medical advances such as the development of the polio vaccine, cloning, vitro fertilization, gene mapping, and they even went up in the first space

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Dana Garcia Ripley Honors English 2 20 March 2017 Lack of Justice The book The Immortal life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot tells the story of an African American woman named Henrietta Lacks whose cells made one of the greatest medical contributions ever. Henrietta Lacks died of cervical cancer at the age of 31. Cells were taken from her body without her knowledge. Rebecca L. Skloot is a self-employed science writer who specializes in science and medicine.

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This was the first time that Guy and his research team had come close to being able to grow human cells inside a dish, without them dying off. Guy continued to grow these cells in his lab, still not informing

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In Disney princess movies we often find that in order for the viewer to effectively sympathize with and care about the main character, bad things must happen to good people, and these bad things are made as awful as they possibly can be for the viewer to really and truly care for the character. In The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, a biography by Rebecca Skloot, Skloot uses a pathos appeal in order to almost force the reader to sympathize with the characters, namely Deborah. Though Skloot masterfully pulls at the reader’s heartstrings throughout the book, she does so especially when Deborah passes away. The reader find that on the day of Deborah’s death, Sonny had come to check on Deborah, as he always does, to find her with her arms folded

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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 is at once a biography, a work of science journalism, and a book about the interconnected topics of ethics, justice, and racism. Henrietta Lacks, an African-American woman who died from cervical cancer in 1951, was the source of the so-called HeLa cell line, which is “omnipresent” (Skloot, 2010, p. 24) in modern science. The HeLa cell line was derived from Henrietta Lacks’ cancerous tumor, which, against the wishes of Henrietta’s family was taken from her corpse and has been used for prolific and lucrative medical research for over seven decades (Skloot, 2010). Skloot (2010) described The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks as “a biography of both the cells and the woman they came from—someone’s daughter, wife, and mother” (pp. 25-26). While the HeLa cells are ubiquitous in research, the woman from whom they came is, at best, a footnote in biological or medical textbooks.

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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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Henrietta Lacks was a black tobacco farmer from the south who, in 1950, at the age of 30, she was diagnosed with aggressive cervical cancer. Lacks went to John’s Hopkins medical center for treatment for her cancer. In April of 1951, she underwent surgery to remove the larger tumor on her cervix. Henrietta Lacks, died three days following the surgery. Even though Henrietta Lacks died, her cells from the tumor have lived on and have made a major impact on the biomedical community.

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Henrietta knew it was hard to take care of a new baby and a daughter that had a baby brain. She accepted the fact that Elsie had to go to the Negro Insane for her own good. Good thing Henrietta did, as things got harder and harder for her after leaving Elsie. Last but not least the Lacks family accepted that they were never going to get money from Henrietta's cells.

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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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“Was It Illegal for Doctors to Take Cells from Henrietta Lacks Without her Consent?” How can you take cells from a human being and treat them as clothes that you’re just selling. In The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Rebecca Skloot told the story of the woman behind the famous cell line and the fact that her family did not know about Lacks’ immortal cells until more than 20 years after her death. Some believe it was legal to take Mrs. Lacks cells, while others disagree and say it’s illegal. It was definitely illegal for the doctors and scientist to take Henrietta’s cells without her consent.

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The final violation of ethical principles, in the story of Henrietta Lacks, was the violation of justice. Without the contribution of Henrietta’s cells, many discoveries and vaccines, such as the vaccine that conquered Polio, would not have made their pivotal breakthroughs in biomedical research. Her direct and unknowingly, supportive contribution helped save many people’s lives all over the world. Unfortunately, her named did not receive the recognition it deserved, and her family never received any compensation for profits made from direct use of her

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Maybe if the family wasn 't poor they would have been able to be rich and not have gone through so much about their mother 's cells. Maybe if they had money when Henrietta was alive none of this would 've

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The controversy over stem cell research is one of the most heated and debated issues in today’s society. The higher cost of such therapy makes it an ethical concern as this will not be within our means for the ordinary person (Dresser, 2010). The costs associated with research and clinical trials will be through the roof, but these costs will reduce as time and our knowledge evolves. Once successful, it will inevitably become a trend in the future. Stem cell therapy is at its beginning stages and already we see results that we once thought were inconceivable.

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