Improving The Health Of The Population

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

Henrietta only knew about this outcome at the end of radium treatment when she asked if she “could bear another child” (Skloot, 2010, p.47). And although it was stated in her record that she was informed of the side effects of the treatment, it obviously was not delivered clearly or education may not even have been given.

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.

When the cells finally began growing in Gey’s lab it was seen as a huge advance in the world of science, seeing as no one had succeeded beforehand, this was a great accomplishment on his part. However, Henrietta was never told of this or how important her cells had become, she simply continued living without knowing that the cancerous cells inside her were continuing to grow despite receiving “treatment” from the doctors. Her only treatment was a small patch of radiation sewn directly into her cervix on the area where the tumor had appeared, after some tests showed that the tumor had disappeared she continued with her normal life of farming, raising her children, and enjoying life. Henrietta never complained about any side effects of the radiation, however, it eventually would make her infertile and cause her skin on her torso to turn black.

In the example with the HeLa cells, a great debate was raised when the book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks was published. The debate centered around the lack of information of where the cells came from, who should have known about the original harvesting, and the lack of compensation for Henrietta’s family once the cells started generating income. Also discussed was the tendency of the medical community to

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.

They thought the doctors were still trying to fix her,” (Skloot 65). Henrietta’s family is still being treated poorly today, being lied to and never got a profit from the cells. “’She’s the most important person in the world and her family living in poverty. If our mother so important to science, why can’t we get health insurance?’”(Skloot 168). In fact, Henrietta herself is one of the major reasons the debate on whether it should be legal to cell organs and cells is a debate today. “HeLa cells as the springboard to launch the first industrial-scale for-profit cell distribution center,” (Skloot 101). Although there are several arguments in the debate over selling body parts, three key arguments deal with the topics of money, helping others, and personal choice. Considering all of the topics, the selling of body parts for profit should be

The non-fiction book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, written by Rebecca Skloot, details the happenings and life of Henrietta Lacks, an African American woman and tobacco farmer who became a medical miracle in the 1950’s. The book is written in an attempt to chronicle both the experiences and tribulations of Henrietta Lacks and her family, as well as the events that led to, and resulted from, research done on Henrietta Lacks’ cells. Henrietta was a very average African American woman in this period; she had only a seventh-grade level education, and followed traditional racial and gender roles by spending her time has a mother and caretaker, as well as working on farms throughout her life until the involvement of the US in World War II brought her and her husband, “Day” Lacks, comparatively better work opportunities in industrial steel mills. However, after her death in 1951 Henrietta became much more than average to doctors at John Hopkins when the discovered that cells extracted from her cancerous tissue continued to live and grow much longer than any other tissue samples. Further investigation and isolation of these thriving cells led to the creation of the first ever immortal human cell line in medical history. The incredible progress in medicine made possible by Henrietta Lack’s tissue cells were not without downfalls, though. The treatments and experiences received by Henrietta and the effects it had on her and her family demonstrate both racial and gender

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 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.

Due to severe pains, on January twenty-ninth, nineteen fifty-one, Henrietta went to Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland where she was diagnosed with cervical cancer by Dr. Howard Jones. She was a patient in the “colored ward”. During her eight month long radiation treatments, doctors removed two dime-sized samples of her cancer-ridden cervix without ever informing her, asking her permission and letting her family know. Henrietta Lacks died of cancer a few months after her diagnosis on October fourth, nineteen fifty-one, at Johns Hopkins Hospital at the age of thirty-one, leaving behind her husband

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks (2010) is a result of Rebecca Skloot’s discovery and findings devoted to Henrietta’s life story along with her family members that revived the real person behind tremendous scientific accomplishments sprung of immortal HeLa cells’ exploitation. The research of HeLa cells has changed various areas of medical study and stepped forward scientific breakthroughs that continues today. HeLa cells were central for developing the polio vaccine; exposed secrets of breast cancer and leukemia; lead to important advances in vitro fertilization, cloning, genetic hybrids, gene mapping in virology, HIV, HPV, tuberculosis, telomerase, salmonella, live cell transport, for profit distribution of cells, scientific standards, space biology and nanotech (Skloot 2). HeLa, “Goddess of Death” (Skloot 250), cells have been exposed to household chemicals, drugs, cosmetics, viruses, radiation, and biological weapons (Skloot 252). Following Henrietta Lacks’ death in 1951 “from a vicious case of cervical cancer” (Skloot 3), doctors began a massive production of trillions of HeLa cells each week. The produce, more than fifty million metric tons, of a HeLa factory has been bought and sold by the billions. In spite of all of this, Henrietta Lacks, the woman from whom HeLa cells came, stayed unknown to the public for a half of the century and buried in an unmarked grave. Even Henrietta’s family for many years stayed ignorant about what had been accomplished using their

It clearly obvious that to George Guy- the man who discovered HeLa cells- Henrietta was the same black women she was before she died and after she died. During this period of time, there were no set laws regarding that a patient must give permission or be notified if they cells were extracted from them. Even so, being African American and a woman during this extremely racist time period there was guarantee that she would even be told or lied to, similar to the 600 African Americans who were involved in the Tuskegee syphilis experimentation who were actually lied to.

Henrietta Lacks: an unknown name up until recent years. A name that had been known to the world only as HeLa; The first two letters of a name that belonged to a poor African American tobacco farmer that unknowingly changed science and life as we know it today. Her life has finally been portrayed in a very intimate story that not only does her life some justice but also transcendentally brings to mind the philosophical issues concerning medical ethics both of the past, present, and the future. In a world of constantly evolving medical advancement, science is a pivotal force that propels ideas forward. Although most will agree that the knowledge and cures found are a positive aspect, there is also a necessary evil that is involved, including

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.