Skloot Reflection

Skloot’s initial interest in Henrietta was born out of sheer curiosity, but turned into a genuine want to help Deborah know her mother and understand what happened to her. Skloot’s genuine care for people can be insinuated in her description of the time she spent with Deborah, as she says, “Each time I visited, we’d walk the Baltimore Harbor, ride boats, read science books together, and talk about her mother’s cells” (Skloot 251). The book took a backseat to helping Deborah. She wasn’t concerned with publishing her book quickly and making money quickly; she truly wanted to help Deborah understand what happened to her mother. She handled Deborah’s erratic bouts of paranoia with grace, patiently and calmly waiting for her to come around

The story took place in Baltimore in the early and mid 1900s, when prejudice was prominent and black people were not treated fairly or equally by white people. Moreover, the entire black community was terrified of night doctors, who would kidnap black people for scientific testing, and the book states that “fear of the night doctors only increased in the early 1900s, as black people migrated north to Washington D.C., and Baltimore” (166). This shows that the setting of the story had a huge impact on the book, as black people were taken advantage of routinely against their will. This is what happened to Henrietta, as she had to drive miles and miles to go to the only hospital around that would serve black people just to have her cells were taken without her consent by white scientists and used for the benefit of others. The author also uses many changes in point of view in the story to provide more background and portray the many different ideas and views of different people. For example, Skloot starts off telling the story from Henrietta’s point of view, showing her family and her struggles through her time with cancer. Then, she switches over to the eyes of a scientist who was working with Henrietta’s cells in a lab and working to grow the cells to benefit the scientific world. Finally, the author tells the story through her own eyes as she had to acquire information about Henrietta’s personal life through Henrietta’s family and the struggle she went through to get it. The setting of the story and the changes in point of view used by the author improve the story

Rebecca Skloot’s book “The immortal life of Henrietta lacks” chronicles the life, death, and immortality of Henrietta lacks. Her name is Henrietta lacks but most scientists only know her as HeLa. She was a poor southern tobacco land worker who worked on the same land her enslaved ancestors did. Henrietta was a young black woman whose cervical cancer cells became one of the most important factors in bringing about the most revolutionary advancements in both medicine and science in the twenty first century. Author Rebecca Skloot goes on a hunt to find out the story and women behind the infamous cells. After only being a given a brief summary of where the cells came at the age of sixteen. With pique curiosity skloot began to look for more information about this unknown woman only to come short with little to no information regarding her background. Deciding to take matters in her own hands she embarks in a journey that not only revealed the moving story of Henrietta and her family but the struggle the family goes through in order to stay at terms with what the field of medicine has done.

192). At the end of the article, Rogers comments about the price of a vial of HeLa cells (Skloot, 2010, p. 192). Until this point, the Lacks family were unaware that companies were making a profit from their mother’s cells. This infuriated the family members because white professionals such as doctors and researchers were making a profit from their mother’s cells, while Henrietta’s children struggled financially as well as physically and could not afford to go to the doctor. It would be another twenty years before the author, Rebecca Skloot, entered the lives of the Lacks family. By then, the family would have encountered many reporters from magazines and new stations wanting to learn more about the woman behind the HeLa cells.

In Rebecca Skloot’s book, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks (2010), the main purpose for Skloot to write the book was to inform the world and tell the story of Henrietta Lacks. How her cells were taken without neither her or her family’s consent, still being used today, helping to cure diseases and being grown in petri dishes all over the world. It tells the story of the HeLa cells and it puts a face to the name and a family, showing that this person saved millions of people without any acknowledgement or recommendation that this was an actual person who did have a life and was not just cells. Rebecca Skloot’s intended audience are those who are ready to listen, it is a book for anybody to pick up and not be expected to know what everything

Rebecca Skloot, a science writer has always been obsessed with the name Henrietta Lacks. Henrietta Lacks was an African American women whose cancer cells were removed and used for scientific experimentation. Many doctors believed that cells were not immortal, until they found Henrietta’s. People did not know much information about Henrietta and her family, and so Skloot wants to tell her story. Throughout her research, she does not realize how much backstory, and emotional baggages exists until she contacts the family, and begins to connect with them. The family members are keen about the idea of opening up to people about Henrietta. They believe that reporters will just keep on taking advantage of them. With this, Skloot realizes that the

The overall argument Skloot makes in this book is the lack of recognition and racial injustices pertaining to Henrietta Lacks and her immortal cells. The cells that helped evolve the polio vaccine as well as the advancement towards medicine. Henrietta never gave permission for her tissue to be taken by a man, George Otto Gey, whom she never did meet. He wanted them for his benefits and reasons. Race may have played a role that if she were a white person, Gey would have asked permission to conduct this experiment. The people who were responsible for taking her samples did not pay any respects when Henrietta passed away to her or her family that they discreetly took from. One of the last to know about these cells, HeLa more than 2 decades later,

Laws that now prevent things such as invasions of privacy and define requirements of informed consent. If these laws had been in place during Henrietta's life, the story of the Lacks family may have been very different. In the last couple of chapters, we learn how Rebecca works with Deborah to piece together her mother’s story. Deborah, who suffers from crippling anxiety, comes to befriend Rebecca and is comforted in the idea that her mother’s story is finally being

Even though she had little, she always tried to make do of what she had. She was heart-warming, beautiful, and always had a smile on her face. After her death and the impact of her cells, the character she withheld during her time of living was now tarnished. People no longer associated her as once being a living-breathing human being, but an immortal cell culture. As time progress, her name became to be HeLa cells. It took the general public decades to know her birth name and learn about the life of this woman. Skloot mentions many times that after seeing how impactful Henrietta cells became, they often forgot that these cells belonged to an actual human being, somebody who was just like us. That was why it was so important for Henrietta’s family that their mother’s life be broadcast to the world and show the public that she is much more than the HeLa cells. Her family also wanted to make themselves known, hoping to receive some kind of financial benefits. For several decades, the Lack’s family had been in the dark during the HeLa era. They were unaware of the significant impact their mother had in the world of medicine. There were no doctors who took them aside, educating them about cell culture, cellular immortality, or HeLa. As the PH story of Henrietta Lacks grew, the deeper her family was in the shadow of it. All changed, once a reporter by the name of Rebecca Skloot came into the family’s life, wanting to write about them and Mrs. Henrietta Lacks in her upcoming novel. Unlike everyone else, Skloot was aware that the Lacks family had a story to tell and that Henrietta needed her identity and to be heightened. From a national perspective, the PH story of Mrs. Lacks introduced the most well-known medical research discovery, in which helped billions of people around the world. Masses of people were able to benefit from the HeLa in a way in which they were all biologically intertwined.

Rebecca Skloot in her book uses scientific facts as well as dialogue of the family and others Skloot meets on her journey and with her family comes their views of how Henrietta was treated by the doctors at Johns Hopkins Hospital. When Henrietta was diagnosed it was the era of the Jim Crow South. In a time that was predominantly racist, African Americans weren’t treated with the most consideration. No researcher found it necessary to compensate the Lackses for using their mother's cells. The Lackses still show their frustration about how they have yet to be compensated for researchers using their mother's cells. Reverend Pullum, Deborah’s second ex-husband, answered her phone saying if Skloot wishes to speak with Deborah “‘they want to be assured

Henrietta’s cells gave scientists the ability to create desperately needed “medical miracles” such as “polio vaccines, some cure for cancer and other things, even AIDS”(159). Contrasted with Henrietta’s suffering, Skloot introduced another side to the story. The word “miracles” implied Henrietta had special qualities that scientists had yet to find in anyone else. Her body, coupled with her doctor’s shot in the dark to grow immortal cells, spawned a magnificent period in time with many new vaccines and saved lives. The new angle on Henrietta’s story made it not only her story, but also the story of countless other people. Skloot, who originally gave people clear direction in how to feel about Henrietta’s cells, threw a curveball and made everyone step back and evaluate what they believe is right. Skloot invited people to look inside themselves and sort through the mess of emotions she created, because she wanted people to learn not only about Henrietta, but also about their own

Some assumptions had to be made, including Henrietta’s medical records which were “A summary of many disparate notations,” (x.) and specific scenes from her life which were “deduced from the written record or quoted verbatim as it was recounted to her in interviews.” (x.) Despite this, all came from multiple sources containing credible information, and such information, though fabricated, is based on truth. Skloot includes them because not doing so would take away from the overall message of the book, making them necessary aspects of the book. Therefore, it is forgivable that Skloot used some fabricated

Ms. Skloot is one of the characters in the book that bring the reader to understand the story and she was a memorable character. I think it would be different if Ms. Skloot had not parted of the story because she was the only one who does the journal about Henrietta Lack’s life. Many people who know HeLa, why no one is doing it? HeLa’s kids are already grown up and no one shares her story. Deborah never saw her mom when she was a child what she has was only the picture of her mom and the memory of her mom’s document. Based on the scenes on page 289 I think there’s is nothing different there Deborah was the focus on that scene, Rebecca was only listening to that time “Gary and I shot each other a nervous glance and both started talking at once,

In the beginning of the book Deborah wasn’t interested in seeing her mother’s cells. Over time she has learned more and more about Henrietta and how her cells contributed to science. With this knowledge she was then ready to overcome her fear of going to Johns Hopkins and seeing the cells. We can infer that Skloot used this as one of the pieces of evidence to prove how Deborah mourned her mother. Deborah had to do this later in life because she was so young when Henrietta died, and would not have been able to understand why and how she died. When Skloot was writing the book, her and Deborah became close and was one of the few people who would explain Henrietta’s cells to her. This learning about her mother helped her understand how her mother

I was kind of surprised with the reaction she got from Pattillo with him being super hesitant and not really wanting anything to do with the production of the book. However, Deborah was different and gave a lot of random information that Skloot could piece together later on. With the second phone call she was informed that Deborah was instructed not to provide any more information that could help Skloot. I then realized that the Lack's family sat in the cold with the HeLa cells and never got any recognition. Another thing, with Hela being very important in the science industry many people had already tried to get in contact with the family but, with the wrong intentions. Skloot's intentions were pure however, there was no way they coulee known