Rebecca Skloot Essay

“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 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.

Bobette met a research scientist who said he had been working with cells from a woman named Henrietta Lacks, Bobette’s reaction can be seen here, “But Bobette kept shaking her head saying, ‘how come nobody told her family part of her was still alive?’ ‘I wish I knew’ he said. Like most researchers, he’d never thought about whether the woman behind the HeLa cells had given them voluntarily’” (Skloot 180). The research scientist she talked to, along with countless other scientists, had never thought about the woman behind the cells and this is part of the reason nobody ever told the family about the cells. Bobette finally found out about the HeLa cells after twenty-five years of no information and a revolution in medicine caused by her late mother-in-law. But it did not get better for the Lacks family after discovering Henrietta’s cell line. Every time one of the Lackses asked questions about Henrietta’s cells, the professionals would never take time to answer their questions, to help them understand what had happened at Johns Hopkins with the cells, or to explain to the Lackses what Henrietta’s cells accomplished. The doctors did not care about the patients and their families, but more about what was in it for them. The doctors did not look at the situation ethically by not telling the family about the cells. They also violated privacy values, which are now rights. They

The unethical practices against the African-Americans in the U.S. Public Health Service became even more evident when the dreaded “C” word, also known as cancer, struck the body of Henrietta Lacks. After complaining of an invasive pain in her lower abdomen and excessive blood secretion, Henrietta went to the only hospital that treated African Americans with illnesses of that magnitude. At Johns Hopkins Hospital, Howard Jones cut a small sample of Henrietta’s cervix and sent it to the pathology lab. After a few weeks of testing, Henrietta received a call requesting that she return to Hopkins to begin her cancer radiation treatment. During Henrietta’s first radiation treatment, the surgeon on duty Dr. Lawrence Wharton Jr., picked up a sharp knife and began shaving pieces of tissue from her cervix-without receiving patient’s consent.

Once Henrietta Lacks gained enough courage to admit herself to Johns Hopkins and receive what she thought was normal medical treatment for what ultimately turned out to be cancer of the cervix, speculated to have been caused by HPV given to her from her abusive husband, the struggle of her ailment became unknowingly at the time the cure for millions of people and the legal and ethical issues developed. The legal issues at hand were did Dr. Gey steal Henrietta’s cells for personal gain to have his lifelong dream of duplicating cells literally come to life? How did Johns Hopkins as the institution profit from

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

Years passed and Henrietta felt a lump inside of her. She decided to go to the doctor and from there they sent her to Hopkins hospital. Racism and poverty played a very important role when Henrietta decided to go to hospital. Hopkins Hospital was built for charity for sick and poor people. Most of the patients were black and they could not pay their medical bills. Day, take Henrietta to Hopkins because it was the only hospital in Baltimore where he treated black patients. In case some black person went to another hospital only for whites, the staff denied them entry even if the person was dying. Hopkins were also a hospital for blacks they also put rooms for blacks only, bathrooms only for blacks and fountains only for

In Rebecca Skloot’s pioneering non-fiction book, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, the complex story about the revolutionary HeLa cancer cells is told through the lives of the Lacks family and the multiple scientists and doctors that were part of one of the greatest breakthroughs of medical research in the twentieth century. The tale of the infamous and immortal HeLa cells was not just a scientific one, but one that involved struggle, confusion, ethical transgressions, and legal issues. Skloot writes about the life of Henrietta Lacks and her immortal cancer cells as well as her own research endeavor. Henrietta grew up with a very large family who all lived together and sometimes married internally. She eventually married and had kids with her first cousin, David. As an adult, Henrietta suffered from what she called a “knot” in her cervix, medically being cervical cancer. It all started when she started receiving cancer treatment from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, MD. John Gey had used cells from the tumor for medical research. At the age of 31, Henrietta died from her fatal disease, leaving her cells behind to continue her legacy. Despite the fact that her cells were researched throughout the world, the Lacks family was still living in extreme poverty with little to no opportunities for advanced education. Johns Hopkins conveyed limited information about Henrietta’s cells to her family to the extent that some family members did not even understand what a cell

Often, they did not receive the same medical care as their caucasian counterparts—forcing them to seek treatment at “colored only” facilities staffed by white doctors. Due to the fact that blacks were discouraged from questioning the wisdom of white medical professionals, there existed an opportunity for these doctors to take advantage of their patients without their knowledge or consent: “…doctors often withheld even the most fundamental information from their patients…Doctors knew best, and most patients didn’t question that. Especially black patients in public wards” (Skloot 63). Shortly before her death in 1951, Henrietta Lacks was admitted to the colored wing at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore due to her maladies. Soon, she was diagnosed with acute cervical cancer and provided with radium

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

In the novel The Immortal life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot, the story of Henrietta Lacks, an African American woman, whose suffering changed the course of medical research is told through the eyes of the Lacks family. Skloot explains the story told to her by the Lacks family after much convincing that Thirty year old Henrietta Lacks was desperately looking for help in 1951 at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore for what she found and called a "knot" on her cervix. She was diagnosed with cervical cancer and treated with radium and x-ray therapy. In the process, some of the tissue was removed from her tumor and sent down to George Gey 's lab at Hopkins to be cultured, or grown, in test tubes. Gey was the head of the tissue culture department at Hopkins and he 'd been trying for years to get cells to divide infinitely in the lab so that the scientific community could have an infinite supply of human cells to experiment on. Neither Henrietta nor any of her family members knew about the tissue sample—and neither Gey nor Hopkins ever informed them. They didn 't inform them even after the cells began to grow amazingly fast and Gey and the rest of the scientific world realized they 'd just made a gigantic breakthrough in medical technology. Eventually, the never ending reproducing cells was used to create the polio vaccine, yet no recognition was ever given to Henrietta. Skloot presents the idea of the medical and scientific hospitals being tainted and manipulated by

Henrietta Lacks is a vibrant woman who has been diagnosed with cervical cancer at Johns Hopkins Hospital in 1951. She undergoes a biopsy procedure and the tissues that are removed are examined and determined to be cancer. At the same time other doctors are testing her tissues to settle a difference of opinion between

Although some may argue that the doctor’s actions were unethical, there were no laws in place; hence, the doctors did not really commit a crime. On top of that, Gey was not the only doctor or researcher of that time who took cells without consent. If this is the case, should not the other uninformed patients, whose tissues or cells were removed but did not contribute to science as much as Henrietta’s did be compensated as well? Only because Henrietta Lacks’s cells resulted in a paramount discovery, many advocate for the need to repay monetarily. Additionally, the ruling that when tissues are removed from one’s body--with or without consent--any ownership of the organs disappears further highlights the lack of need to compensate financially. This controversial ruling allows a larger supply of cells to work

There were 884 million doctor’s visits in the US alone in 2014, another 125 million counting hospital visits. It is clear that society trusts the doctors and nurses that it employs to uphold high standards to carry on with the task of saving lives. Our society doesn’t blink an eye and puts all its faith into doctors without question. Society assumes that all doctors are good and ignores the potential of an immoral doctor. A study conducted by the NCBI showed that 90% of all medical students have witnessed an unethical medical practice performed by the doctors that society had trusted. This means that if you had any doctor’s visits in the last few years, most likely you were a victim of an unethical practice. This is the situation that Henrietta Lacks faced at John Hopkins Hospital in the 1950s. Rebecca Skloot details the accounts of mistreatment and abuse that followed Henrietta Lacks in her novel The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. Henrietta Lacks was an African American mother seeking cancer treatment at John Hopkins Hospitals, who ended up to be one of the biggest medical discoveries at the time. Doctors at the hospital discovered the power of her cells and in doing so abused and misuse Henrietta Lacks in the process, which ultimately led to her death. Although Henrietta Lack’s cells proved to beneficial to millions of people, the misconduct performed by the doctors is uncalled for and violates the oath that every doctor had sworn to. There is no

One of the first cases to present ethical concerns of biobanks involved a woman named Henrietta Lacks. She was at Johns Hopkins Hospital for cancer treatments. During this time her cancerous cells were surgically removed and examined. This examination