The Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lack

“He told them he was testing their immune systems; he said nothing about injecting them with someone else’s malignant cells” (Skloot 128). This is one of the many incidences in Skloot’s book, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, where Skloot argued that medical research and advancements were held at a higher importance than fair treatment and rights of the patients and their families. Henrietta and the Lacks family are just one example. Skloot developed her argument by including information about uninformed consent and the Lacks family, providing examples of instances where doctors took advantage of their patients for their own benefit, and gave information about the Lacks family and their current medical situations. In order to adequately

Public health is defined as a science that promotes and protects the health of communities through education and research. “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks” speaks about many research opportunities that were aided by the help of the HeLa cells, which transformed into many major parts of the modern public health system. The research and treatments created was a tertiary approach aimed to manage certain diseases and to control further disability in the community. However one of the major obstacles in using and multiplying the HeLa cells was how ethical the process was. Many regulations and guidelines that those in the public health industry now abide by came from the controversial studies that stemmed form the HeLa cells. Without the bold

Henrietta Lacks is the victim of multiple perspectives of judgment in The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. There are some viewpoints that respect her personality and honor it. However, others consider her only as a distraction and are only interested in her cells. Rebecca Skloot begins her book with a quote by Eli Weisel to emphasize her point of view in the situation, but she also gives insight on the other perspectives involved. In The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, the immoral beliefs of the outside world, the consequences they bring, and Rebecca Skloot’s contrasting point of view define the quote from Eli Weisel.

Rebecca Skloot, a scientific journalist, wanted to learn more about Henrietta Lacks. She went on a search for the family only to learn that they knew little about Henrietta’s cells. Even though Rebecca was warned that the family was upset about how the scientific community treated

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’s, “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks,” brings forth the story of a black woman, Henrietta Lacks. Henrietta was one of ten kids raised on a tobacco farm by her grandfather, Tommy Lacks, and married her half-brother David ‘Day’ Lacks. Before Henrietta died in 1951, doctors diagnosed her with cervical cancer and a malignant tumor at Johns Hopkins Hospital, the only hospital in the Baltimore area that accepted black patients. This story focused on how doctors at Johns Hopkins, particularly George Gey, the head of tissue-culture research at Johns Hopkins, took advantage of Henrietta. Before her death, doctors biopsied a portion of her cervical tumor and harvested the cancerous tissues. When researcher cultured these tissues, they discovered the cells had hearty, unusual qualities that allowed them to grow almost anywhere, with relative ease that was unheard of in the early stages of the field of cell production. Once researchers realized these qualities, people took steps to ensure her cells, called HeLa by researchers, could be purchased by anyone around the world. After her death, these cells were the backbone of many scientific discoveries around the world such as the vaccine for polio and the realization of HPV. However, Skloot questions whether or not these doctors ever had the right to take these cells from Henrietta without her permission, let alone sell them to researchers around the world. Rebecca Skloot analyzed the story of Henrietta’s HeLa cells,

Medicine is a scientific creation that allows people to save the lives of others. In some cases, people give a part of themselves while they are still alive or after death to help the lives of other people. So, is it completely wrong that doctors use the tissues and cells from left over procedures or the findings they seem valuable during procedures without consent for research? Is it wrong that patients and families are not compensated from the miraculous research doctors may or not discover? Doctors everyday are saving the lives of people with the help from cell and tissue research. What seems to be the issue is that people are more irritated by the fact they are not being notified or asked for consent before hand. In a lot of cases, most patients wouldn’t allow the use of their tissues to

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot tells the story of how the world famous HeLa cell line was created and the medical, legal, and cultural issues surrounding it all. This book doesn’t just cover how scientists used these cells to create life saving vaccines and treatments, it shows us the woman behind these extraordinary cells and what she and her family have went through. The woman behind these ever prevalent cells is Henrietta Lacks. At the time she was a poor, African

Much of society uses technology for many tasks that include communication, school, jobs, etc. Most people think that using technology has its negative effects such as physical and emotional. Those can be generally related to the biography, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, by Rebecca Skloot due to the fact that Henrietta’s family was not acknowledged about using the cells of Henrietta without their permission or Henriettas. Another example from Unit 3 would be Prometheus: The Friend of Man which shows that when Prometheus, the main protagonist, spends time on Earth helping man give them the fire from the god, Jupiter. The two units The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks and Prometheus: The Friend of Man both support the following idea about the responsibility people have developing new technologies.

Smithsonian, 2010. Cracking the Code of the Human Genome: Henrietta Lacks’ ‘Immortal Cells’. (Extracts from ‘The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks’ (Rebecca Skloot, 2010)) http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/henrietta-lacks-immortal-cells-6421299/ [Accessed 26th June 2017].

Sympathy develops from the image of those suffering. The heart cannot bear to see others in pain, and ultimately wants to help. In Rebecca Skloot’s contemporary biography, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Skloot uses pathos to connect the reader emotionally to Deborah Lacks. The emotional connection helps the reader to understand Deborah’s stress and pain.

The remarkable story of Henrietta Lacks was just the beginning of successful cell culture: a process by which cells are grown in a laboratory under controlled conditions. Prior to this, researchers had attempted to cultivate human tissue in the lab, but failed. Through the pain and anguish the Lacks family experienced, a new era in the scientific world was born. As a black woman in the fifties, she had the least resources available to her in terms of medical care. When she got sick, there was only one hospital that admitted black people, and she was kept in a separate colored ward. Due to the fact that cell culture had never been successful, there were gaps in the knowledge of cancer treatment. Therefore, while the doctors thought they were curing her, they actually were killing her. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, aside from the horrific death of Henrietta and the mistreatment of her family after the fact, hones in on the relationship between Rebecca Skloot, the author, and Henrietta’s daughter, Deborah. They have their ups and downs, but nearing the end of their journey there is familiarity between the two and a steadiness that resembles mother and daughter. Skloot explores every aspect of the Lacks family and includes the sadness and hopefulness expressed by all. She also writes copiously about the scientific significance of Henrietta and her particular situation.

The immortal life of Henrietta Lacks is the breathtaking story of an African-American woman. Henrietta Lacks was a simple poor tobacco farmer whose cells were laboratory grown in 1951 by Doctor George Gey (Skloot 4). The cells are still universal in the world. Rebecca Skloot, a science journalist who dedicated more than ten years of research and dedication to know the Lacks family, writes the story. Rebecca’s interest in the story of Henrietta was when a teacher mentioned a casually in the class where Rebecca’s daughter Deborah happened to be a student. Later, Deborah told her mother about the incident, and the journey of discovery began.

The passage that stood out the most to me in The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks was Chapter 32, “All That’s My Mother”. Throughout the book, the Lackses suffered greatly from the stress that came with knowledge of Henrietta’s cells. Upon discovering the role HeLa cells had in science, every time they heard something about the cells in the news, they were frightened of what it meant for Henrietta. There were few people to help them understand this news, much less to help them learn more about HeLa cells.

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks is a historical fiction book by Rebecca Skloot, a scientific writer.