Henrietta Lacks Objectivity In Journalism

Rebecca Skloot, a scientific journalist, wanted to learn more about Henrietta Lacks. She went on a search for the family only to learn that they knew little about Henrietta’s cells. Even though Rebecca was warned that the family was upset about how the scientific community treated

The perception of what is right and wrong is always changing because of history. In particular, laws in the past were considered just, but as years passed people began to question the extent at which these laws were just. Various medical laws and bioethical issues pertaining to Henrietta Lack’s cells being stolen are discussed in Rebecca Skloot’s non-fiction work The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. A question Skloot addresses in the book is, “Wasn’t it illegal for doctors to take Henrietta’s cells without her knowledge? Don’t doctors have to tell you when they use your cells in research?” (Skloot 315). In her nonfiction work The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks Skloot employs authoritative warrants to argue that while it was not illegal

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, by Rebecca Skloot, is a book about an African-American woman, Henrietta Lacks, who had cervical cancer in the early 1950s. Henrietta went to John Hopkins hospital, one of the only hospitals to treatment African-Americans, they derived part of her cancer cells from her cervix and tried to keep growing her cells for research to try and discover a cure for cervical cancer. They have tried this on many patients before, but Henrietta’s cells were special and kept growing, while the other patient’s cells would die. However, Henrietta Lacks and her family had no idea about the doctors taking her cells and medical records and sending them to other doctors around the world. In Skloot’s book there are many ethical

“ The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks” by Rebecca Skloot, is a very well written, thought out and informative book about the ethical and legal issues in healthcare. Skloot discusses Henrietta Lacks and her family, and what they endured throughout her hospital stay and after life. Rebecca Skloot interviewed Henrietta’s family, friends, neighbors and experts on the case to help write a truthful book. Henrietta’s cells were taken without her permission and the book goes in-depth about the journey her family suffered through to get justice. This book gives insight about America’s disputes in the 1950’s: discrimination or racism, religion and poverty.

Rebecca Skloot tells the story of Henrietta lacks and her cells that were taken from her without permission and used for a number of scientific advancements. Skloot addresses issues of bioethics in her book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. She makes emotional appeals, builds her character, and makes logical appeals to celebrate the HeLa cells and make the case for Henrietta’s family to be compensated for the cells. This book focuses on the story of the family, life, and death of Henrietta Lacks.

In Rebecca Skloot’s book, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks (2010), the main purpose for Skloot to write the book was to inform the world and tell the story of Henrietta Lacks. How her cells were taken without neither her or her family’s consent, still being used today, helping to cure diseases and being grown in petri dishes all over the world. It tells the story of the HeLa cells and it puts a face to the name and a family, showing that this person saved millions of people without any acknowledgement or recommendation that this was an actual person who did have a life and was not just cells. Rebecca Skloot’s intended audience are those who are ready to listen, it is a book for anybody to pick up and not be expected to know what everything

Born in 1920 Henrietta Lacks, has helped advance the world of medicine in ways that she wouldn't think were possible. In her book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Rebecca Skloot takes us on a powerful journey about an African American women whose cells--were taken without her consent in 1951. This book tackles many issues that existed during this time, for example, racism and many ethical issues. The experiment conducted by the surgeon J. Marion Sims addresses many of the same matters that are presented in the novel written by Skloot. Both of these medical experiments performed on African American women advanced the world of medicine, but they were also seen as unethical and morally incorrect by their peers.

The book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks is full of different perspectives on a significant event. Rebecca Skloot explains the process of african american Henrietta Lacks’s cancer from her point of view along with the doctor’s and the Lacks family’s. Skloot included many issues from the current time period. She heavily addresses the fact that informed consent was not a priority to doctors and scientists and the effect of the abuses that occurred.

Rebecca Skloot, author of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks was fascinated by Henrietta and her cells and wanted to tell the story of her life. Lacks never got much credit for her contribution to science and Skloot wanted to share the huge impact her cells gave to medical research. However, Skloot needed contacts to Henrietta’s family in order to get the facts about her life. She did not realize exactly how much she was about to learn. When Skloot finally got in contact with the family she learned they were very skeptical about giving out information of Henrietta.

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, written by Rebecca Skloot, is a national bestseller and is considered one of the most engaging pieces of nonfiction literature of all time. Through her own perspective, Skloot offers the reader insight on the life of Henrietta Lacks, both prior and during her battle against cervical cancer. In doing so, Skloot captures the corruption of the medical professionals in the 1950s and contributes details of her personal account with the Lacks family. Overall, Skloot retells the story of Henrietta Lacks, while incorporating central aspects such as violation of ethics, discrimination against minorities, corruption of medical professionals, and scientific advancements that have

A major issue that is profound in the novel, “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks,” is the ethical issues that were present before and during the time of HeLa cells. Rebecca Skloot, the author of the novel, explores this major issue throughout the book. Ethics is an important factor in this novel because there is a major change in how research was done before and how it is done now. Skloot puts emphasis on the importance of the ethical issues by providing a variety of stories and examples beginning with Henrietta Lacks tissue being taken without her knowledge. Within the ethical issues, there is also the concepts of informed consent, privacy, and deception.

Rebecca Skloot, a science writer has always been obsessed with the name Henrietta Lacks. Henrietta Lacks was an African American women whose cancer cells were removed and used for scientific experimentation. Many doctors believed that cells were not immortal, until they found Henrietta’s. People did not know much information about Henrietta and her family, and so Skloot wants to tell her story. Throughout her research, she does not realize how much backstory, and emotional baggages exists until she contacts the family, and begins to connect with them. The family members are keen about the idea of opening up to people about Henrietta. They believe that reporters will just keep on taking advantage of them. With this, Skloot realizes that the

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot is based on the story of Henrietta Lacks, an African-American woman who died of cervical cancer. It was during the time when race was still a big factor in the United States and the principle of medical ethical was in its early stages. One of the main themes of this book surrounded around the ethical issue of informed consent. During an operation to remove the cancerous tumor from Henrietta Lacks, Dr. George Gey took a sample of cancerous tissue from cervix without her consent. Also, her family was not informed of the sample that was taken out from Henrietta and it was years before they found out about the fate of their mother’s cells. The cell that was extracted from Henrietta, known as

People easily view themselves as the main character of their story. We experience our lives from the first person perspective, our own perspective. We are the center of every single one of our experiences. But what about everyone else? After all, we cannot be the main characters of every life story. We think very little if at all about what sort of life the barista serving us coffee has, or the daily woes that plague a fast food worker serving us burgers at a drive-through. We have a tendency to view others as functions of how they benefit us. Rebecca Skloot’s nonfiction novel The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks is a vivid illustration of this spirit of abstraction. The scientific community and the national media used Henrietta and her family as a commodity, exploiting them for their own benefit, forgetting that behind the cancer cells they took, lies a human being. This abuse was caused by an irresponsible sense of altruistic authority, journalistic encroachment and the phenomenon of groupthink.

During this week I investigated many different news sources and different tactics they use. My research has shown the incredibly strong bias that the media has. To get a full grasp of the biases I had to use source diversity. My sources ranged from social media, to television, to web-based articles. Through my research, I discovered the effective and prevalent uses of loaded language, social media, sensationalism, bias in quotes, and the role of gatekeepers in media.