Henrietta Lack

“The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks” is the story of Hela cells and the women and family behind them. HeLa cells are the cells that have helped scientists all around the world discover cures and vaccines that have saved thousands of lives. But before they did all those things, they were inside a woman, named Henrietta Lacks, and were taken from her without her knowledge. Her family would not know about her cells until years after her death and millions of dollars in revenue gained from the HeLa cells. At the time doctors did what was considered common practice but did they cross a line? Or were the amazing scientific achievements enough to excuse the violation of personal privacy? Despite good intentions doctors should never have taken Henrietta’s cells without her consent, and furthermore her family deserves compensation for the work those cells have helped accomplish, and the sometimes horrible circumstances they have had to deal with because of the cells.

The scientific community is culpable of viewing Henrietta Lacks as an abstraction rather than a human being in that they disregarded her right to privacy in extracting her cells

I believe that the Lacks family should without a doubt be compensated for the HeLa cells. There were so many unethical things done to not only Henrietta but here family as well especially with the DNA blood samples that were taken and they deserve the right to be compensated. So many scientist made money off of the cells

Clearly, these researchers had their own agenda to acquire a medical breakthrough that would change the history of science and contribute to the greater good of society. However, their authority was used in an unwarranted manner to accomplish their goals, regardless of their respectable intentions in wanting to make medical progress. In reviewing these researchers and medical practitioners’ actions during the 1950’s which entails series of unethical behaviors and violation of human right, it develops an essential need to establish guidelines in the attempt to protect patient’s rights and privacy. Furthermore, due to the alternatives that arise throughout this case, there are many possible outcomes to be considered that could have a significant impact on stakeholders if these courses of action are fallowed. These solutions consequences may involve the tentative research, an advance way of life for the Lack’s family, political turmoil, economic health impact and a society whose cells may have similar experience.

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 Lacks family has been honored at the Smithsonian Institution and the National Foundation for Cancer Research. The HeLa case has raised questions about the legality of using genetic materials without permission. Neither Lacks nor her family granted permission to harvest her cells, which were then cloned and sold. The Lacks family has had limited success in gaining control of the HeLa strain. In August 2013, an agreement between the family and the National Institutes of Health granted the family acknowledgement in scientific papers and some oversight of the Lacks genome.

Imagine having no rights in life. Imagine one day you get sick, and you go to the hospital to get better, but you get taken advantage of. How would all that make you feel? Henrietta Lacks was an African-American woman. During her time, women didn’t have equal rights like men did, and African-Americans didn’t have equal rights like white people did. Since Henrietta was an African-American woman she had it rough, there were times that everyday tasks were a struggle. In 1951 she was diagnosed with terminal cervical cancer. She was treated at John Hopkins University, where doctors didn’t do all they could even if they said that was the case, and were Doctor George Gey took her cells from her cervix without consent. I watched the Law and Order episode titled “Immortal”, I found it to be extremely similar to a book I read titled The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot even though the show said in the beginning that this was not based on a true story.

“He told them he was testing their immune systems; he said nothing about injecting them with someone else’s malignant cells” (Skloot 128). This is one of the many incidences in Skloot’s book, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, where Skloot argued that medical research and advancements were held at a higher importance than fair treatment and rights of the patients and their families. Henrietta and the Lacks family are just one example. Skloot developed her argument by including information about uninformed consent and the Lacks family, providing examples of instances where doctors took advantage of their patients for their own benefit, and gave information about the Lacks family and their current medical situations. In order to adequately

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.

In 1951, Henrietta Lacks was diagnosed with cervical cancer at John Hopkins Hospital. Without any consent, Henrietta’s doctors took tissue samples from her cervix and attempted to grow them and keep them alive. These cells, known as HeLa cells, began to grow at an unbelievable rate; The HeLa cell became vital for the development of vaccines and other scientific research. However because of Henrietta’s race and economic standpoint, Henrietta Lacks and the rest of the Lacks family was exploited by doctors. The exploitation of the family allowed the doctors and researchers to benefit scientifically and monetarily.

The treatment of African Americans in The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks demonstrates the lack of ethics in the United States health care system during the 1950s and 1960s. Under the impression that medical doctors at Johns Hopkins Hospital were solely injecting radium treatment for cervical cancer, Henrietta Lacks laid on the surgical bed. During this procedure Dr. Lawrence Wharton Jr. shaved two pieces of tissue from her vagina, one from a healthy cervical tissue and one from the cancerous tumor, without Henrietta’s prior knowledge. After recovering from her surgery Henrietta exited the door marked, “Blacks Only,” the door that signified the separation between White and African-American patients. Had Henrietta been White, would the

Henrietta Lacks case was different than Mississippi and Tuskegee in some ways. In Henrietta’s case the doctors took her cells from her cervix but like in the Mississippi and Tuskegee cases they took them without Henrietta’s permission and launched a multimillion-dollar medical industry after she died. The purpose of taking Henrietta’s cells was to just run a couple tests until they died but they ended up living and growing. Instead of telling Henrietta and her family what they have been doing the doctors kept the discovery to themselves. When the discovery of the immortal cells because known every doctor got their hands on them and started running experiments on them, sending the cells to space, running test on the cells to find a cure to aids and cervical cancer etc…

When the family expressed concerns about privacy, the scientists removed the sequence from the Internet. Hudson and other NIH leaders then met with the Lacks family. Together, the family and the NIH came to an agreement. Researchers can use the HeLa genome by applying to the NIH for access. A group of scientists and Lacks family members review the applications. From now on, when a scientist publish a research conducted using HeLa cells, it must include a thank you note to the Henrietta Lacks and her family for their everlasting gifts to science (Barone 2). Science has used HeLa cells in many ways. For example, HeLa cells are used to study HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, HeLa cells prove that HPV can cause cervical cancer, there is a vaccine that protects against some strains of the virus now, and HeLa cells are also tested to see how quickly they can absorb nanoparticles, which can suggest new methods for delivering drugs to cancer cells. It’s crazy that Henrietta is technically alive after being dead for 60+ years. Her cancerous cells continue to thrive and multiple till this day, around the world. Her cells have help further the medical field, such as find vaccines and doing further studies for HPV and HIV (Barone 3-4). I’m so happy that Henrietta’s family and Henrietta get the acknowledgement they deserve, but still very disappointed that

Scientist used A Henrietta Lacks for great vaccines like HIV but did you know that they didn’t get permission to do it? Science did abuse Henrietta Lacks because they used her cells without her permission .The scientist asked her family if they could use her cells for medicines and vaccines but got denied and still used her cells. The scientist should have given her family some of the profits for the vaccines still if they didn’t say yes or had an agreement. The first reason why scientist abused Henrietta Lacks is, since she was black scientist thought the media wouldn’t care about the families decision on using her cells.”Ebony quoted Henrietta’s husband saying, “All I remember is that she had this disease, and right after she died they called

In an article called “A Lasting Gift to Medicine That Wasn’t Really a Gift” by D. Grady it states “Most of what is removed from people is of no value anyway and researchers say it would be too complicated and hinder progress if ownership of such things were assigned to patients and royalties had to be paid.” If the Lacks’ were given financial compensation it would impede researchers. It would also cause other patients to want to receive money too and as it says would be too complicated. Another reason why the Lacks’ should not receive financial compensation is because of informed consent. “Steinmetz and his team had no legal obligation to obtain permission to sequence and publish the HeLa cell genome . . . That is because the tissues from which they were derived were discarded in 1951, and no laws at the time prevented the use of such materials without consent,” (Callaway). Informed consent is permission granted in the knowledge pf the possible consequences, typically that which is given by a patient to a doctor for treatment with full knowledge of the risks and benefits. Many people, including the Lacks’, claim that