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

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.

Henrietta’s story unfortunately begins with her dying from cervical cancer. During her treatment before her death, Henrietta’s doctor requested tissue samples for research and when he began testing them he realized their amazing potential to continue growing outside of her body. This discovery of immortal cells directly impacted the medical community as it was a precursor for many vaccines and medical advances. Henrietta’s cells, also known as HeLa cells, provided countless medical technologies and vaccines that have been used by public health structures to provide treatments to the masses. Public health services, to this day, still provide treatments that have resulted from the use of the HeLa cells. Millions of people have benefitted from the vaccines, such as the Salk polio vaccine, through the help public health system as well. Unfortunately positive benefits of the HeLa cells were not received by everyone involved. Although Henrietta passed away, there was no consent or compensation offered to her family when the testing and discovery of the cells effects occurred. It took over twenty years for her family to even discover that Henrietta’s cells were being produced, sold, and tested. This left Henrietta’s family in great shock, especially her daughter Deborah. HeLa cells were being sold for billions

I feel that it is necessary to take advantage of the medical innovations acquired through the discovery of HeLa cells, even if it was not done ethically. At the time when the medical innovations were first coming out, there was no knowledge of the foul play that had occurred. Public health systems were able to use the technologies discovered to improve the quality of life for millions of people. In that respect alone I feel that the public health system was accurate. When the discovery of the negative practices arose, I feel that public health systems still responded effectively as they became major players in the process of regulating research and protecting its subjects. Ideally, I would have hoped that reform would have happened before the negative hardship was faced by the Lack’s family, but it was their story along with several others that led to the necessary reform. I believe it would have also helped if there was a process of testing information as it arose. If outside parties would have looked into Henrietta’s doctor’s research automatically, then the years of deceit and mistreatment could have been avoided. In hindsight, there are many instances in which the negative effects of the HeLa cells could have been avoided but public health systems responded effectively to the information they received and the time in which they received