Henrietta Lacks Research Paper

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.

Henrietta Lacks was a poor, black woman who died of cervical cancer in the fifties. Her cells were taken from her during surgery, without her knowledge. However, back then there were no laws about informed consent and the mindset was entirely different. Researchers knew little about cells and how they function. Her immortal cells allowed researchers to have an ample amount of resources to be able to study cells and later on develop vaccines and treatments for many diseases. Even though her cells were cancerous, they still shared many basic characteristics of a normal cell, which allowed researchers to learn a lot about a cell’s basic function. Her story explains how medical research has developed and how health care has progressed over the past sixty years.

Henrietta Lacks was born on August 1, 1920 in Roanoke, Virginia. Henrietta’s mother passed away in 1924. She was sent to live with her grandfather. Henrietta shared a room with her first cousin David. They had their first son, Lawrence in 1935 when she was fourteen. Then they had their first daughter in 1939, Elsie, who was disabled. Henrietta and David then moved to Maryland and had three more children, David Jr., Deborah, and Joseph.

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.

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks is a true story of a poor, Southern African-American tobacco farmer who died in 1951 at the very young age of 31 years old from cervical cancer. Little did she know that cells harvested from her tumor, which were obtained without her consent have lived on and on and became one of the most important tools in medicine today. Despite Henrietta’s story being full of legal and ethical issues, the story was one filled with success and anguish. Success for science as her cells served as advancement in medical research and development; yet was sorrowful for Henrietta and her family. This story occurred during a time of segregation in the United States, when Henrietta Lacks believed she

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.

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

What if you had the ability to save several lives through something only you had ? Wouldn’t you like to be told and given proper credit? Well unfortunately that is not case for Henrietta Lacks. Henrietta held a powerful and significant key which has helped as a cure for many things and is still being used till this day . I choose to write about Henrietta due to the fact that she is one of histories and science unsung hero’s.

As both Americans and people, our rights are limited and regulated by those in command. The enforcement of these regulations of just treatment is, unfortunately, more severe or less severe depending on race, gender, and wealth. Since the beginning of the United States, the oppression of people of color was present to the strongest extent. White, Europeans arrived in the Americas and looked at the people of color as beings brought to serve them. We forced them to work and when the Native people died out, the Europeans brought in African Americans as their new slaves in the 1700s. Since then, even though they fought to abolish slavery and for their rights, our country continues to treat them differently. This was the case of Henrietta Lacks,

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 born in Roanoke, Virginia on August 1, 1920. After 1924 when Henrietta's mother Eliza died giving birth to tenth child. Henrietta and her siblings where taken to her fathers hometown, clover. When all of the siblings arrived at clover they had to be divided and split up to live with different relatives in different homes. Henrietta ended up with Tommy Lacks, her grandfather and her cousin David Lacks also known as Day. As Henrietta grew older, she began to draw attention from he cousins Day and Joe. Since she had been sharing a room with Day ever since she got there she found herself pregnant with Day's child. At the age of fourteen she gives birth to her first child, Lawrence and at the age of eighteen she has her second

The National institute of Health, Rebecca Skloot, and John Hopkins Hospital have distorted Henrietta Lacks Legacy. In 1951, the Johns Hopkins Hospital took cervical cancer cells from Henrietta Lacks, and developed the HeLa cell line. Neither Henrietta nor her family gave the hospital permission to use her cells at the time. Her cells contributed to major medical discoveries, including the development of polio vaccine. Henrietta’s family was never compensated for the money that they made off of her cells. It was not until 1973 that her children discovered, by accident, that their mother's cells, now immortalized, had become a major boon to medicine and that many people had become rich from marketing them. Ron Henrietta’s

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

Henrietta Lacks was diagnosed for cervical cancer in 1951 in the black wing of John Hopkins Hospital by Doctor George Gey. At the time, Gey was searching for cells that could survive on their own in a petrie dish. He took samples from many, if not most, of his patients in hopes of finding cells that would survive on their own. His attempts were unsuccessful until he took a sample of Henrietta Lack's tumor, which managed to not only stay viable but reproduced at a rapid pace. But, there was a catch. Henrietta Lacks and her family had no idea that Gey took her cells or that he and other doctors would make billions of dollars off of her cells long after she died and left her five kids and husband to live in poverty. Skloot tells the fascinating

Henrietta Lacks was an ordinary women, nothing too extraordinary. However, on the day she walked into John Hopkins, the entire world changed. Let us be reminded that this was during the 1950’s, so there was still the colored and white sides of the hospital. However, Hopkins was still one of the top hospitals in the country, and colored people were not excluded from that. Henrietta went in for a gynecological appointment, when she learned she had cervical cancer. However, this was not the only thing that happened at the appointment. Dr. Howard Jones, without permission, took a biopsy of Henrietta’s tumor and sent samples to his laboratory colleagues. From there, Dr. TeLinde became involved. He was trying to find a cure