Henrietta Lacks Experiment

Permission to use Henrietta’s cells was never given. The family knew nothing of this. While HeLa cells grew into a multimillion dollar discovery. The lacks family was struggling and couldn’t even see a doctor while these people were doing this. This is until the writer of the story Rebecca Sloot and Henrietta’s daughter Deborah decide to team up to find out the story of Hela . They discover

Neither Lacks nor her family gave her physician permission to harvest the cells. At that same time, however, permission was neither required nor usually sought. (Washington, 1994) In the early 1970’s, the family of Henrietta Lacks began getting

For the Medical Immortality project we were assigned a book to read, “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks”. However, to start this project we learned about the different types of organelles and cells. After advancing our knowledge in cells we started to read our book. We would read about 4-6 chapters at a time and then fill out a study guide and test on what was read. Another thing we were required to do was research on the Oxford Style Debate. After knowing these things we have to hold a debate. This debate is tol be group against group arguing “for” and “against” the use of HeLa cells. The debate is the presentation of our knowledge. However, we also have to finish the project with an argumentative essay on the use of HeLa cells.

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…

The scientific community’s careless mistreatment of the Lacks family began with dehumanizing Henrietta’s cells in the very first lab. Generalizing people can especially be easy when one is working with their cells in a lab. The many scientists working on Henrietta’s cells must have found it easy to separate the cells from the person and reduce them to tools to aid them in the task at hand. This view may be harmless when it comes to the individual scientist, and the individual cell, but this view extended to the entire Lacks family and caused them much harm. “Meanwhile, Victor McKusick and Susan Hsu had just published the results of their research in

Henrietta Lacks is woman, whose cells have been used for 63 years after her death in 1951, and will continue to be used as long as they are continue to grow. Henrietta Lacks was an African American woman who was born in the south, who married her cousin and moved up north. After giving birth to her last child, she finds that she has cancer. The doctors took a sample of her cancer cells without her permission, and now have millions of dollars but the family is still hasn’t received the money they are rightfully entitled to. Many of healthcare and entitlements that are around today, are due to the ill treatment of Henrietta and her family. Still to this day, there is very little known about Henrietta Lacks, even with the book out, and she has

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.

In the end, for Henrietta Lacks and her family, it was decided for them that they did not own the cells, regardless of the fact that Henrietta had no idea what was happening with her cells once they left her body. Authenticity is a huge issue in Henrietta’s case because she had no idea what was happening with her cells and that should have been presented to her. Fairness is an important consideration to be addressed, as is it fair that one person can profit off of another person’s cell, but the person’s whose cells they are would never be capable of doing anything with them. Lastly, harms versus benefits

Does your tissue belong to you once it leaves your body? This questions comes up many times with the topic title of Henrietta Lacks. This lady died of cancer in 1951, her cancer cells were the source of the HeLa cell line the first immortalized and most important in medical research. We used her cells to try and find cure, but many people didn't think this was ok because they were her cells and did not tell anyone about until 20 years after her death. So the question still stands do you think your tissues belong to you once it leaves your body?

The family feared what they believed were "night doctors who abducted black people for medical research"(Skloot). Because there was still discrimination then, they feared the worst. In my opinion the Lacks family was angry with the scientists using HeLa cells from Henrietta without the family's consent. I think they wanted everyone to know that Henrietta didn't donate her cells, they were taken without asking and without telling the family what was going to happen to them.

The public health committee made these vaccines and treatments aware to the public, and there were many articles and stories out about them. These responses were successful in improving the health of the nation, and the advances in medicine we have today would not be possible without it. On the contrary, they were not successful in improving the health of Henrietta or her family. The Lacks family still cannot afford the vaccines or treatments that Henrietta’s cells have made possible today. Their family was taken advantage of because they were poor and illiterate African American family. Their family has had many medical problems that the HeLa cells could have cured; yet they cannot receive any because they cannot afford

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

The main ethical issues in this case is that researches at Johns Hopkins Hospital used Henrietta’s cell in multiple researches and send her cells to other researchers around the world without her family’s consent. Moreover, the Lackes themselves were used in medical research without informed consent, and Henrietta’s medical records were release to journalists without her family knowing.

The medical community did not explain to or inform the Lacks family of the HeLa cells; along the way the scientists altogether forgot that Henrietta and her family were not abstractions but actual people. The family felt that this was unethical; they felt their mother was robbed and taken advantage of. Despite the spread of HeLa cells and the whirlwind of new research that followed, there were no recent news or stories about “the birth of the amazing HeLa cell line” (Skloot 58). In the beginning, when Gey had kept the origin of the cells- or Henrietta - a secret, no one knew where the cells had came from and no one cared to ask.

The truth is the doctors that took Henrietta’s cells were doing it for a good cause. They didn’t do it to ruin her and her family’s life, they did it to help people and save lives. There were no laws prohibiting the taking of one’s cells, in fact in a later Supreme Court of California ruling, it was actually defended. When tissues are removed from your body, with or without consent, any claim to ownership