Jane Skloot 's The Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks

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.

These are issues because the cells of Henrietta lack were used to create “immortal” cells that provided a steady supply of cells for medical research and allowed to find cure for multiple diseases, and guaranteed the medical industry millions of dollar when her family his struggling to pay for healthcare. Moreover, researchers at Johns

Dr. Gey announced his discovery of the immortal cells to the world, yet many people did not believe him at first considering there

Henrietta Lacks died never knowing the impact her life would have on the world of medicine. A poor, black woman living in Baltimore, Maryland in the 1950s, Henrietta was diagnosed with cervical cancer and died only nine short months after her diagnosis at the age of thirty-one. The mother of five children, Henrietta most likely died thinking her family would be her legacy. Little did she know her doctor at John Hopkins hospital, George Gey, had taken some of her cells before she died. With Henrietta’s cells, Dr. Gey was finally able to achieve a goal he had been working toward for decades – creating the first line of immortal cells (Freeman). These cells have been used for countless scientific research and have solidified Henrietta Lacks’ place

The Henrietta Lacks Foundation is a non-profit organization founded by Rebecca Skloot, author of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, who is donating a portion of her book’s proceeds to the Foundation. Henrietta was a poor black farmer whose cancer cells had damaging consequences for her family who today can’t afford access to the health care advances their mother’s cells helped make possible. The Foundation strives to provide financial assistance to needy individuals who have made important contributions to scientific research without personally benefiting from those contributions, particularly those used in research without their knowledge or consent. The Foundation gives those who

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

Finding discoveries that would greatly benefit medicine have always been difficult to achieve in cancer research. Though, everything changed on February 1, 1951, when Howard Jones discovered that Henrietta Lacks had cervical cancer. When George Gey heard of this, he took samples from Henrietta Lacks’ tumor, and found something that changed for future medical research. George Gey had noticed that Henrietta Lacks’ cancer cells was the first human cell line that could be consistently passaged. The cells were later called HeLa cells, which were named after Henrietta Lacks. Even though scientists greatly benefited from it, Henrietta Lacks, nor her family profited from it.

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

Dr. George Gey decides that he wants to do an autopsy on Henrietta once she passes away, he explains to Day, husband of Henrietta, that they "wanted to run tests that might help his children one day" (89-90). Scientists discover many vaccines using Henrietta's cells, but the Lackses cannot receive health insurance, " If our mother is so important to science, why can't we get health insurance?"(168). The family of the woman who's cells help save millions of lives cannot receive health insurance, proves that Henrietta and her family are viewed as an abstraction to the scientific community. Scientists and the media are making millions of dollars off of HeLa cells, and not once do they help Henrietta's family come out of poverty. "She's the most important person in the world and her family living in poverty" (168).

Henrietta Lacks was a black woman that grew up in the rural segregated south; her lifespan was from 1921 to1951. She grew up on her grandfather Lacks tobacco farm after her mother died giving birth to her tenth child. From the time she was four years old, she picked, cleaned, and harvested tobacco leaves, spending little or no time in school; she had at most a 6th grade education. By the time she was fourteen, Henrietta had given birth

Who is Henrietta Lacks? Henrietta Lacks, known as the mother of modern medicine, was a poor African American tobacco farmer in East Baltimore who was buried in an unmarked grave sixty years ago. Upon discovering she had cervical cancer at John Hopkins University after a swab of her cells was taken, it was already to late for her. Henrietta’s children went on to live a life in poverty with no health care, while her mother’s cells launched a medical revolution. Her cells are seen as immortal, because they are grown in culture and are still living today. In addition, they were unlike

When I first heard about the book "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks", I thought it was just a reading assignment when I was in high school that I had to complete for a grade. As I began reading I became particularly interested in Henrietta Lacks and the HeLa cells. In "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks", Rebecca Skloot talks about Henrietta Lacks and how her cells were taken without her permission, and how her family suffered afterwards. Skloot shows how medicine and science were seen back in the 1950's compared to now.

Gey found that Henrietta cells were different than the usual cells. It was never happening before when Gey found a cell that grows with mythological intensity in the lab. Usually, every cell will die or survive for a while in the lab. “However, the Henrietta’s cancer cells seemed unstoppable as long as they had food and warmth” (Skloot 65). This was the first immortal human cells that they called HeLa. This name came from the first two letters of the name Henrietta Lacks.

Henerietta Lacks died as a young woman and her cells are still active today. Born in 1920, she passed away in 1951 at the untimely age of 31 years (Lacks Family, 2012). Consequently, she endured the brutal effects of cervical cancer that took her life. Before she had any treatment,