Hela Cells And The Ethics Behind Them Essay

In the example with the HeLa cells, a great debate was raised when the book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks was published. The debate centered around the lack of information of where the cells came from, who should have known about the original harvesting, and the lack of compensation for Henrietta’s family once the cells started generating income. Also discussed was the tendency of the medical community to

The HeLa cells (the name for Henrietta Lacks cells) led to the discovery of polio vaccines, genetic medication, HPV vaccine, and much more. Still today, these HeLa cells are being researched and used to protect the public from life-threatening diseases such as cancer and tuberculosis. The public health response to new medical advancements and research from the HeLa cells has had many positive and negative consequences on the individuals, families/communities, and the nation.

Much medical advancement would not have been possible without cancer cells from Henrietta Lacks. While these HeLa cells are infamous in the medical community, the story behind them was barely known by any until Rebecca Skloot uncovered it.1 Information about Henrietta Lacks uncovers a history of consent not being asked for, and certainly not being given, but because of the cells, medical discoveries were made without her family’s knowledge.1 It brings to light the idea that while cells are a part of a person’s body, once they are out of the human body there is no more ownership. Without informed consent though, is it still owned by the person whose cells they are?

HeLa simply stands for Henrietta Lacks, a young mother in the 1951 who went to the doctor complaining of vaginal bleeding and discovered she had cervical cancer. Henrietta’s cells were taken for a biopsy and were found to be like nothing ever seen before; her cells were immortal. Her cancer cells double every 20 to 24 hours and have lived on for the past 60 years. Since HeLa cells were created, our world of modern medicine has been completely changed. We now vaccines for once incurable diseases and have used the cells for cloning and other biomedical research. Although the cells have done a great deal of good,

Anything outside of our permission or control is considered an assault. Despite our beliefs and what should be, this was quite contrary with Henrietta Lacks. An article in The Scientist noted “The global rise in biobanks – currently a $1 billion industry that is expected to grow to $2.25 billion by 2015 – also introduces other ethical concerns, including patenting of biological materials, whether donors control what happens to their tissue, whether donors should be compensated, and the privacy issues dramatically highlighted by the online publication of the HeLa genome.” Enhancing public awareness is paramount around this topic along with engaging in the ethical complexities effectively, which in the end could build awareness, boost trust, and improve an understanding around the purpose of biobanks and how they operate. Henrietta Lacks case presented a beneficial context for analyzing the legal and ethical issues that may be raised when human tissues are being used in medical research.

In 1951, Henrietta was diagnosed with cervical cancer. Doctors at John Hopkins took samples from her cervix and tried to keep them alive. After Henrietta Lacks died at the age of thirty-one, the doctors asked her husband if they could do a biopsy on her and he said no but then changed his mind. They

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks tells the story of Henrietta Lacks. In the early 1951 Henrietta discovered a hard lump on the left of the entrance of her cervix, after having unexpected vaginal bleeding. She visited the Johns Hopkins hospital in East Baltimore, which was the only hospital in their area where black patients were treated. The gynecologist, Howard Jones, indeed discovers a tumor on her cervix, which he takes a biopsy off to sent it to the lab for diagnosis. In February 1951 Henrietta was called by Dr. Jones to tell about the biopsy results: “Epidermoid carcinoma of the cervix, Stage I”, in other words, she was diagnosed with cervical cancer. Before her first radium treatment, surgeon dr.

In this semester’s book club, I have enjoyed the book called The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. This book describes a true and famous cell line in the medical research field, that is the first immortal cell line in the world, HeLa cells. Not until I finished reading this fantastic book, I know that the HeLa cells were taken from a cervical cancer patient, Henrietta Lacks, without letting her know the truth about using her cells in research, even though she died. What more surprising to me was that her family lived a hard life without health insurance while the researchers make many profits from developing HeLa cells, they were never informed about their family member’s devotion to the scientific research.

Due to severe pains, on January twenty-ninth, nineteen fifty-one, Henrietta went to Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland where she was diagnosed with cervical cancer by Dr. Howard Jones. She was a patient in the “colored ward”. During her eight month long radiation treatments, doctors removed two dime-sized samples of her cancer-ridden cervix without ever informing her, asking her permission and letting her family know. Henrietta Lacks died of cancer a few months after her diagnosis on October fourth, nineteen fifty-one, at Johns Hopkins Hospital at the age of thirty-one, leaving behind her husband

In 1951, Henrietta Lacks had cells removed from her body without her permission, since then there have been many changes in the way medical researchers get their information. For example, medical researchers today need to obtain consent from the individuals and the parents of children from whom they are performing biomedical tests on as well as an Institutional Review Board (IRB). In addition, in 1996 the United States introduced (“HIPPA Regulations”) that offer data privacy and security provisions for safeguarding medical information. In the case of Henrietta Lacks and her HeLa cells, her rights and her privacy did not exist, so new policies and laws paved the way to help protect the rights of

In 1951 there was a young black lady who was named Henrietta Lacks. Henrietta Lacks was a tobacco farmer in Clover, Virginia. Her mother died giving birth and her father moved the family to Clover, where the children were distributed among some of the close relatives. In January of 1951 she went to John Hopkins hospital, which was the only place close to her that treated black patients at the time. Lacks described a “knot” in her stomach that ended up being cervical cancer. During her treatments two samples from her

“Skloot traces the changing ethics and law around tissue collections, and the inadvertently careless journalists and researchers who violated the family’s privacy by publishing everything from Henrietta’s medical records to the family’s genetic information.” (Margonelli). Skloot thoroughly explains how these laws effected the Lacks family and how their case led to medical ethics and law changes. The authors main purpose for including this was to share the Lacks’ story and their experience with immoral medical ethics. Another main point explained throughout the book is medical science. With the discovery of HeLa cells science began to have a rapid rate of new discoveries and cures to other diseases. “The reason Henrietta’s cells were so precious was because they allowed scientists to perform experiments that would have been impossible to perform with a living human. They cut HeLa cells apart and exposed them to endless toxins, radiation, and infection.” (Skloot 58). Skloot explains that without Henrietta’s cells science would not have evolved to what it has become

Innovations and scientific advances in the 20th century brought about further knowledge of genes and genetics, and later of how diseases interact with human cells. This level of scientific progress was unprecedented, and the medical and biological ethics going along with the science needed time to catch up. From the 1950s with the collection of HeLa cells to the early 2000s with Dr. Catalona, there has been debate over who owns tissue samples taken from human beings. This paper presents an argument for a limited ownership of tissue samples.

The book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot, was a nonfiction story about the life of Henrietta Lacks, who died of cervical cancer in 1951. Henrietta did not know that her doctor took a sample of her cancer cells a few months before she died. “Henrietta cells that called HeLa were the first immortal human cells ever grown in a laboratory” (Skloot 22). In fact, the cells from her cervix are the most important advances in medical research. Rebecca was interested to write this story because she was anxious with the story of HeLa cells. When she was in biology class, her professor named Donald Defler gave a lecture about cells. Defler tells the story about Henrietta Lacks and HeLa cells. However, the professor ended his

The idea of patients' rights and educated assent was not knew about in the 1950s. The HeLa cell line motivates us to open up a genuine discussion about those rights today. Henrietta's medicinal records were really distributed without her family's authorization at a certain point.