Book Report On Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks

A doctor named George Gey discovered her cells were immortal and sold them to other companies to be experimented on. Fast forward 20 years later, Rebecca Skloot set off to investigate more about Henrietta, starting with meeting her family. The Lacks family were astonished when finding out about Henrietta’s cells and how they affected the medical field. Then realized their mother was taken advantage of and were outraged that doctors never got consent of taking her cells and knowing Henrietta never got recognition. Rebecca becomes close to the family and helps them find out more about their mom and other things they never knew

"The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks", by Rebecca Skloot, is about an African American woman born and raised in Roanoke, Virginia, and later dying in Baltimore, Maryland. Through her a life she battled a cancer that was often called a cervical cancer, and she later died in Baltimore, Maryland. Henrietta Lacks, born as Loretta Pleasant, is commonly known for her cancer cells called, HeLa, which is a name made from the first two letters of her first and last name. This book was very informational, not only for family purposes, but for science too. It has a lot to relate to science, whether readers realize it or not.

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, by Rebecca Skloot, is about a poor African American Women named Henrietta Lacks, better known as “HeLa” to the rest of the world, whose Cells taken, unbeknownst to her, revolutionized the medical field. Henrietta, originally named Loretta Pleasant, was born on August 1, 1920 in Roanoke, Virginia. After her mother’s death when she was 4 years old, her father felt incapable of taking care of her, so she was given to her grandfather and raised an old plantation house with her fist cousin, whom she ended up marrying and having four children with. Her story really starts in 1951, after she went to Johns Hopkins Hospital because of what she described a “knot” inside her. Turns out she had adenocarcinoma of the cervix (cancer of the cervix) which caused the formation of many tumors. During the treatment of her Cervical Cancer, without her consent, two tissue samples of her cervix were removed. After examination of these samples, Dr. George Otto Gey observed something “never seen

The book is about a young woman that has cervical cancer. Henrietta Lacks goes to the doctor and begins taking treatments for her cancer. She was 31 years old and had five children. The doctor cut out some cells from her cancer during her first treatment. The doctor did not notify Henrietta of this being done. The cells were put in test tubes and began growing in the laboratory. Henrietta's cells were the first immortal human cells in the world. Rebecca Skloot learned about Henrietta Lacks while she was in a biology class at the community college she was attending. She became fascinated with Henrietta and began trying to learn more about her. The contents in the book are a lot like what we have been learning in class. We have

In the Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Rebecca Skloot presents multiple situations that involves Henrietta Lacks and other minorities. More importantly, Skloot talks about Henrietta’s poor treatment. The author provides the similarities between Henrietta Lacks, John Moore, and Mohan Chakraborthy’s treatment. She constantly defends minorities throughout the text because they received an awful treatment. In fact, the doctors were careless with their minority patients.

It all started with her feeling a “knot in her womb” and a visit to the gynecology clinic at John Hopkins Hospital. For many months she visited the doctor back and forth for multiple things like the birth of her son, discovering she had untreated gonorrhea and syphilis and what later turned out to be cervical cancer. Being that Henrietta was a black woman, the author depicted a vivid image of how black people were treated and discriminated against in hospitals back in the early to mid 1900’s. There were colored fountains and colored-only exam rooms. So, when she discovered she had these diseases it came as no shock that they had been untreated for so long.

Elie Wiesel once stated: “We must not see any person as an abstraction. Instead, we must see in every person a universe with its own secrets, with its own treasures, with its own sources of anguish, and with some measure of triumph.” This means that every aspect of a person is important because they all have a story to tell which is unique. They all are much more than the stories told about them. Everyone has faced challenges in their life whether it be emotionally or physically, but have also have had achievements. In the book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot, both the scientific community and the media are guilty of having viewed Henrietta and her family as abstractions. She was an African American women from whom a scientists took cancerous cells found in the tumor located in her cervix. The cells were named HeLa and were grown to an inconceivable number and became

Prior to reading The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks I had heard of the HeLa cells and their contribution to medical research, but I had never really known where they had come from. In fact, I had never even associated the cells I heard about with an actual human being before reading this book. I found the book intriguing in the way it interweaves the story of the Lack’s family with the scientific history, racial politics, and medical ethics. Not only did I learned a lot about the science surrounding the HeLa cells and the nature of medical ethics, I also learned about Henrietta and her family. Learning about the Lack’s family along with how much the HeLa cells have contributed to science helps to humanize the story and make it more than a scientific history and a

The book “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks” was written by Rebecca Skloot. Rebecca is a freelance reporter from Chicago, Illinois. She first learned about Henrietta’s story in a community college biology class from her professor. Rebecca became deeply interested in Henrietta so she decided that she wanted to tell Henrietta’s story. She had the idea of writing a biography of Henrietta, the HeLa cells, and her children. “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks” is a book about a poor black woman living in Baltimore, Maryland in the 1950’s who only had a sixth or seventh-grade education and had not studied science at all. She developed a viciously cancerous tumor in her cervix. When she went to Johns Hopkins

The book of 'The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks ' is about a mother that had die with a unknown cancers in which her cancerous cells stayed alive outside her body. Her family doesn 't knowns until many years later when reporters and doctors starts to talk about her mothers cells in world wide. Her family wants to learn more about her mothers cells but not many of the reporter and doctors are much help. Until Rebecca Skloots the authors of this book helps her family to understand more about Henrietta cells and helps the future Lacks family education. Throughout this book they were many themes that stand out, but what caught my attention the most were the lack of education, cells and tissue ownership, and the trust.

In the book, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Rebecca Skloot, a college student learns about Henrietta Lacks, becomes infatuated with her life, and wants uncover the mystery behind the cells that made history. Henrietta Lacks is an African American woman who died of cervical cancer. During the time of her treatment, her cells were “stolen” from her, taken to a lab and grown to aid in scientific research. These cells were known to society as “HeLa cells”, which assisted with vaccine discoveries and helped scientist receive a better understanding of human life. Although HeLa cells played a significant role in human advancement, Henrietta Lacks and her family suffered tremendously. Henrietta did not give consent for her cells to be taken or used for research, which

I was touched by the reactions of the family to when they defined the term immortality and related it solely to their family. Skloot stated, “It was the closest they’d come to seeing their mother alive since they were babies.” (Skloot, 265). Deborah and her family believed that the immortal cells represented her mother. After grasping the comparison on what her family versus how scientists felt the cells represented shifted in my reaction. I became resentful and offended of the way the doctors treated Henrietta and her cells like a product. A women died of cervical cancer, and they were using her cells as if they were a common household product. This stood out to me because as an African American, soon to be Biology graduate, it shows how far we’ve come. I concluded that this book is about the discrimminations of a woman who lived in a time where African Americans were not treated equally by scientists and researchers. In the text, you could feel the vulnerability that the family felt; and to read how they were treated was depressing.

The immortal life of Henrietta Lacks is the breathtaking story of an African-American woman. Henrietta Lacks was a simple poor tobacco farmer whose cells were laboratory grown in 1951 by Doctor George Gey (Skloot 4). The cells are still universal in the world. Rebecca Skloot, a science journalist who dedicated more than ten years of research and dedication to know the Lacks family, writes the story. Rebecca’s interest in the story of Henrietta was when a teacher mentioned a casually in the class where Rebecca’s daughter Deborah happened to be a student. Later, Deborah told her mother about the incident, and the journey of discovery began.

In The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Henrietta’s family has had many hard times throughout their lives. Each member of the family has had their own hardships, but they were all affected by the death of their mother. Henrietta died of cancer and her cells were taken for research which caused the family major problems years later. Each of her children struggled in their own ways after her death because of care-takers, and abusive husbands. This family has been through so much in their lifetime that no one can understand what they have felt unless they have lived through it as well.

“The Immortal life of Henrietta Lacks” written by Rebecca Skloot exposes the truth about a colored woman, Henrietta Lacks, who died from cancer leaving five children and a husband behind. Before her death doctors took her cells,without her or her family consent, to do there own research and experiments. They discovered that her cells were immortal, they became the first immortal cells known as the HeLa cells..After the discoverment the Lacks family were never told that Henrietta Lacks cells were used, bought and sold. Through the HeLa cells the scientist had made money while Henrietta kids were mistreated and were in poor situations.It wasnt till 25 years later that the Lacks family found out about the HeLa cells doing miracles. Rebecca Skloot though “The immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks” was able to explain the unethical situations that the Lacks family faced after Henrietta’s death.