Henrietta Lacks Essay

Henrietta Lacks was born Loretta Pleasant on August 1st, 1920 to Eliza and John Randall Pleasant, in Roanoke, Virginia. It is uncertain how her name changed from Loretta to Henrietta. After her mother, Eliza, passed away giving birth to her tenth child in 1924 her father, John, distributed his children to relatives in Clover, Virginia. Henrietta ended up with her grandfather in a log cabin that previously had been slave quarters for a white ancestor’s plantation. Henrietta shared a room in the cabin with her cousin, David Lacks. In 1935, when Henrietta was 14 years of age, the cousins had their son Lawrence. Four years later the couple had Elsie their handicapped daughter, following her birth they proceeded to marry in 1941. In Maryland, where they moved at the urging of their cousin, they had three more children: David Jr., Deborah, and Joseph. At Johns Hopkins Hospital on January 29th, 1952, Physician Howard Jones quickly diagnosed Henrietta with cervical cancer. On October 4th, 1957, at the age of 31, Henrietta Lacks passed away at Johns Hopkins Hospital.

Henrietta Lacks was a poor African American that became one of the most vital tools in developing medicines like polio vaccine, cloning, gene mapping, and much more. She was a loving mother of five, wife, sister, and friend to many that was taken on October 4, 1951 at the age of thirty-one to cervical cancer. Henrietta’s cells were taken without her knowledge to develop the first ever immortal line of cells.

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

Henrietta Lacks died in 1951 of cervical cancer, leaving behind a husband, five children and some cells taken from her without her permission. These cells continue to revolutionize the scientific field today and have played an integral role in some of the most important advances in medicine: cloning, chemotherapy, gene mapping, the polio vaccine and in vitro fertilization. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks answers a lot of questions regarding the Lacks family, but also poses a number of questions regarding ethics, consent and how far society is willing to go to make medical advances.

Henrietta Lacks, a woman whose cells have made millions of dollars, but most people don’t know her name, or her story. “She’s usually identified as Helen Lane, but often she has no name at all. She’s simply called HeLa, the code name given to the world’s first immortal human cells – her cells cut from her cervix just months before she died. Her real name is Henrietta Lacks,” (Skloot 1). Through the last few months of her life, she had major struggles with hospitals and scientists. Henrietta was in serious pain throughout the last few months, and the doctor treated her as a specimen. “Henrietta is still a miserable specimen,” (Skloot 66). Another major flaw in Henrietta story is the fact that her family was barely told of her condition of cervical

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

Henrietta Lack was born on August1, 1920 in Roanoke , VA . As she moved on in life she became the wife of David “Day” Lacks in 1935. The two eventually moved to Maryland and had four children Elsie, David Jr., Deborah, and Joseph. One day Henrietta was

As an American, we are asked whether if in a car accident or inevitable death, our organs can be harvested and donated to people in need. This takes away the question of whether someone in your family should be compensated for their donation. The Lacks family, once they discovered the amount of money circulating due to the HeLa drug, believed they had a legal right to it because it was made up of their own DNA. But, if you look at is as if Henrietta had put a donor sticker on her driver’s license, no family member, that I know of, has ever asked for compensation on an organ that was donated after a serious accident. The Lacks family if they had decided to refuse the ability to study and sell the HeLa drugs could have set back scientific discoveries years with many casualties that were saved because of the medicine’s developed. Yes, the family was poor and oppressed but that was not necessarily going to change with the money given to them by the hospital. The money, of course, would have contributed them to providing them a better life, but the system is main offender, not the hospital. Many people of color faced the same challenges the Lacks family did because of the injustices present in our government and

Henrietta Lacks was an African American woman who was born on August 1, 1920 in Roanoke, Virginia. She lived with her mother until the age of four and then she moved in with her uncle on a tobacco plantation after her death. While staying there she ended up sharing a room with her first cousin David “Day” Lacks, after sharing a room with him for many years, in 1935 Henrietta had their first child at the age of fourteen, they named him Lawrence, then, four years later they had their second child Elsie and then in 1941 they were married.

Henrietta Lacks was a poor black tobacco farmer from Virginia and a mother of five. She died on October 4, 1951 at the early age of 31 from cervical cancer. Without her knowledge, cells from her cancerous tumor were taken. They were used to create the first human immortal cell line for medical research. HeLa cells as they are called have had a major impact on modern medicine such as the polio vaccine, cloning, in vitro fertilization and gene mapping. Even though Henrietta Lacks’ contribution to modern medicine was groundbreaking, she remained virtually unknown for years.

Henrietta Lacks was born on August 1, 1920 in Virginia. Her original name was Lorretta Pleasant but soon changed her name to what most know to Henrietta Lacks. When she was 4 years old her mother passed away, and she was then sent to live with her grandfather on a plantation where she was a slave. She roomed with her first cousin, David Lacks. The two together had a baby boy in 1935 when Henrietta was 14. Then the two had another child 4 years later and named her Elsie. In 1941, the two married and moved to Maryland and had three more children. Then ten years later on January 29, 1951, Henrietta went

Henrietta Lacks was born in Roanoke, Virginia on August 1, 1920. Like most African American families at this time, Lacks worked as a tobacco farmer starting from an early age along with her many brothers and sisters. In 1935, when Lacks was 14 years old, she gave birth to her first son, Lawrence Lacks. In 1939, when Lacks was 18 years old, her first daughter, Elsie Lacks, was born. A few years later, Day and Henrietta Lacks were married. Later that year, the couple left the tobacco farm that both Henrietta and Day had lived on for many years to Maryland where Day Lacks could work in the steel industry. Living in Maryland, Henrietta and Day Lacks had three more children, David Lacks, Jr., Deborah Lacks, and Joseph Lacks. On January 29, 1951,

Henrietta Lacks was born under the name Loretta Pleasant. No one knows why she made the change; at the time it was also unknown that she would leave behind a legacy of helping create the polio vaccine, and furthering our understanding of cervical cancer and genetics. No one is born knowing what events will take place in their life. So it's up to us to decide how we want to be remembered when the time

Lacks was born in 1920 in Roanoke, Virginia. After her mother’s death in 1924, Lacks was sent to live with her grandfather in a log cabin that had been the slave quarters of a white ancestor’s plantation. She shared a room with with her first cousin, Day Lacks. Henrietta and Day grew closer together and had a child in 1935 when Henrietta was fourteen. They had a son, Lawrence and daughter Elise. They got married in 1941, and moved to Maryland where they had three more children; David (Sonny), Deborah, and Joseph(Joe). Their daughter Elise, who was developmentally disabled, was placed in the Hospital for the Negro Insane. In January 1951, Lacks went to the John Hopkins Hospital because she felt serious abdominal pain and was bleeding. Lacks was a very strong woman who dealt with pain and suffering very well, so her going to the hospital was a big deal. She was very quickly diagnosed with cervical cancer and began radiation treatment soon after. Unbenounced to Lacks, during these treatments, doctors removed two samples from the tumor. Her pain and suffering continued for a few months until, in October, she died at the Johns Hopkins Hospital at the age of 31. (Skloot, 2011) The cells taken from her body were used to form the HeLa cell line. This case has sparked legal and ethical debates over the rights of an individual to his or her genetic material and

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.