Henrietta Rebecca Skloot Ethical Issues

“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 social contract of nursing encompasses the responsibilities of the nursing profession and other health care professionals entrusted by society. Through this contract, nurses are expected to function and have the responsibility to provide all members of society who need medical care regardless of their cultural, social, spiritual and economic status with honest and respectful service keeping in mind the public’s trust. Furthermore, it is expected that medical professionals and nurses provide individuals, families and the community the best possible care. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to examine the social covenant of nursing in relation to the controversial and ethical issues behind the use of Henrietta Lacks’ cells (HeLa) in

This essay examines the Tuskegee Syphilis Study, wherein for 40 years (1932-1972) hundreds of black men suffering from advanced syphilis were studied but not treated. The 40-year study was controversial for reasons related to ethical standards; primarily because researchers knowingly failed to treat patients appropriately after the 1940s validation of penicillin as an effective cure for the disease they were studying. To explore the role of the racism in the controversial study, this essay analyzes the article written by Allan M. Brandt.

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.

Although she was taken from the world too soon, Henrietta Lacks was a warm hearted woman, and though unbeknownst to her, she would pave the way for the medical field and greatly expand our understanding of one of the nation’s

The social contract of nursing is important because it reflects the nursing's code of ethics, which is to provide care to all who are in need, regardless of their cultural, social, or economic standing. The social contract exists because we rely on a guideline to continue to provide ethical care that is within our scope of practice. Unfortunately, in Rebecca Skloot’s (2010) book, “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks” there were many ethical violations throughout the whole process about the Henrietta Lacks’ cells (HeLa). The author reveals the story about the life of Henrietta Lacks, an African American woman who was diagnosed with a fast-growing cervical cancer at a young age. The cells retrieved from her cervical tumor became the first immortal cell that could survive in the lab and replicate continuously without dying. Without the consent of Henrietta Lacks and her family, these cells later became key components to the development of many groundbreaking inventions such as the polio vaccine and in vitro fertilization. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to examine the social covenant of nursing in relation to the ethical issues behind the use of the HeLa cells without the patient’s and her family’s consent.

In the novel, the immortal life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot. Henrietta was a young black woman of 5 children whose cancerous cells were taken out without her knowledge. Those cells later became one of the most important tools in medicine. The case of John Moore vs. Regents of the University of California has similar ethical issues as present in the novel.

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.

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

The Tuskegee syphilis experiment was an infamous clinical study conducted between 1932-1972 in Macon Country, Alabama by the U.S Public Health Service. The purpose was to study the natural progression of untreated syphilis in rural African American men who thought they were receiving free health care from the U.S government; about four hundred African American men were denied. The doctors that were involved in this study had a shifted mindset; they were called “racist monsters”; “for the most part, doctors and civil servants simply did their jobs. Some merely followed orders, others worked for the glory of science” (Heller) The men that were used for the study got advantage of, especially those

Henrietta’s cells being taken were not the first time that colored people were being taken advantage of in hospitals. There were many more blacks that were tested on and used as experiments for researchers because there lives were not seen to be valuable. African Americans also happened to be less educated, so whatever the doctors told to them they automatically listened to. Not only because they did not understand what they were saying to them and so they believed doctors knew best, but because they themselves did not know any better.

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks focuses on many issues that Henrietta and her family have faced over the years resulting from the discovery of HeLa cells. One such issue that was recurrently present was the ethical issue of informed consent, or the lack of it, in the Lacks’ case. In the beginning when Henrietta was first being treated with radium to kill her cancerous tumor, her primary doctor, Dr. TeLinde, took a sample of the tissue and sent it to Dr. Gey, head of tissue

“Racism and Research: The Case of the Tuskegee Syphilis Study” describes the happenings in the 1932 study for untreated, latent syphilis in black males. The study was conducted to determine what the natural course of untreated, latent syphilis was in black males. When the experiment first took off, a treatment was unknown. In the experiment, four-hundred men with the disease, and two-hundred without were tested. The subjects were chosen through physical examinations. The men had to be syphilitic black males between the ages of twenty-five and sixty. To summarize, the purpose was to see what the course of untreated, latent syphilis was in syphilitic black males between the ages of twenty-five and sixty.

This brings up the ethical transformation of science. Back in the 1950s, Henrietta was given a consent form that stated, “ I hereby give consent to the staff of The Johns Hopkins Hospital to perform any operative procedures that may deem necessary in the proper surgical care and treatment of:” (site book). She was only giving permission about how the hospital was going to do everything they can to help her, not that she was a part of an experiment. According to the The American Cancer Society, “a nationwide, community-based voluntary health organization dedicated to eliminating cancer as a major health problem”, informed consent varies with states (cancer.org). If a doctor doesn't get informed consent, but continues to operate, causing evidential problems, the patient is liable to get a medical malpractice lawsuit. This brings up the question of: What if Henrietta didn’t give consent to the experiment? This could have potentially hindered the advancement of science. On the other hand, Henrietta could have had a longer life span, and lived her life in less pain by not getting exposed to so much radiation. No notification of using the cells not only affected Henrietta herself, but her family. Her family couldn't afford health care, didn't have enough money for treatment, and no insurance. With so little education, they

In recent years, the HeLa cells and the cells backstory has caused outrage towards how the tissue was handled and the lack of informed consent from Henrietta Lacks and her family. Since then, various other cases have come to light regarding the lack of informed consent. Physicians were said to have failed to properly provide a thorough description of how and why the patient's tissue will be used. Within each lawsuit, the core remark is that there is a large grey area on how patients' tissue should be regarded by the Common Rule. Thus, there is no set rules on how to regard patients tissues once removed from the body. Scientists fear that if consent is necessary to gain access to tissues removed from patients, cost and complexity would affect