The Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks Analysis

The scientific community’s careless mistreatment of the Lacks family began with dehumanizing Henrietta’s cells in the very first lab. Generalizing people can especially be easy when one is working with their cells in a lab. The many scientists working on Henrietta’s cells must have found it easy to separate the cells from the person and reduce them to tools to aid them in the task at hand. This view may be harmless when it comes to the individual scientist, and the individual cell, but this view extended to the entire Lacks family and caused them much harm. “Meanwhile, Victor McKusick and Susan Hsu had just published the results of their research in

Her family had realized that Henrietta had suffered and died, but her cells lived on and that her cells have helped so many people. Henrietta’s son said “I just hope Hopkins and some of the other folks who benefited off of her cells will do something in honor of her and make right with the family”(Skloot, pg. 328). Henrietta is finally getting recognized, which brought unwanted attention to the family from the media, doctors, and researchers that wanted a piece of the HeLa gene line. That affected her daughter, Deborah negatively because she never really knew her mother, but when Deborah first heard of the book she was very excited that the world would finally get to know her mother’s story.

In her book, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Rebecca Skloot discusses how the unfortunate diagnosis of cancer for one woman resulted in one of the most influential discoveries in the biomedical sciences. The use of HeLa cells has played a role in some of the largest scientific breakthroughs since George Gey discovered how well they can grow in culture. On the other hand, Skloot’s work also provides a look at the lives of Henrietta Lacks’ descendants. One characteristic that everyone in this family shares is a dedication to religion and spirituality. This juxtaposition between science and religion presents the body and its constituent cells in a unique way. It provides multiple dimensions to how people view bodies. Specifically,

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 her book, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Rebecca Skloot discusses how one woman’s unfortunate diagnosis of cancer resulted in the discovery of the first immortal human cell line, HeLa. The establishment of the HeLa cell line has proven to be one of the most influential breakthroughs in the biomedical sciences because these cells have played a major role in some of the largest breakthroughs in since they were first cultured in the 1950s. In addition to an examination of the science behind HeLa cells, Skloot also provides a look at the lives of Henrietta Lacks’s descendants. One characteristic that all members of the family share is a dedication to religion and spirituality. This juxtaposition between science and religion presents the body and its constituent cells in a unique way. It provides multiple dimensions to how people can view bodies. Specifically, Skloot’s depiction of HeLa cells presents the body and its individual cellular components as entities that exist as both scientific and spiritual beings simultaneously.

As future pharmacists, we are going to face with not only the medications but also the patients, which the former ones are our tools while the latter ones are the people we use correct tools to care about. We are required to combine our pharmacy knowledge among medications with patients’ different health conditions to create the patient-centered care and provide the best outcomes. However, this care trend is in transition now, from professional-orientated to patient-centered.

“The scientific enterprise is all about failure; I mean, you learn so much from failure. And you learn almost nothing from success.” This scientist is stating that one cannot gain any knowledge without failing. This is not true. Once one obtains success one now knows exactly what to do to achieve success, thus opening doors and further experiences for them. The novel “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks” by Rebecca Skloot, due to the success of tissue culture researcher Dr. George Gey can further dispute this quote. His success in tissue culture led to further discoveries, and became one of the most important breakthroughs in modern medicine. The world was

The things that make one human are convoluted. That’s why in a world where everyone strives for simplicity, people are often eluded by the nature of humanity. They often overlook certain aspects of a person in favor of simplicity, reducing them to a single idea which fails to encompass all the facets of an individual, which is what happens to the Henrietta Lacks’ family in Rebecca Skloots recounting of their story called The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. However, this has its ramifications. Even though many feel it is simpler to dismiss the messier details of humanity in favor of cold hard facts, Skloot shows that major consequences arrive when these personal elements are overlooked.

The education levels of the Lacks family members were so elementary that they needed people to explain to them what a cell was. They could not read and comprehend scientific journals that researchers rarely gave them in order to better understand the contributions HeLa cells made to cancer research. The family only became aggravated when the first mainstream article published about Henrietta Lacks in Rolling Stone Magazine said that HeLa cells were once being sold for $25 a vial. The actual figures that HeLa cells were bringing in are incalculable, but this was the first (and smallest) figure that the Lacks family members were ever exposed to. The issue that Henrietta’s children began fighting for was regarding how their mother’s cells made so much money, yet they never saw a single penny from it.

She repeatedly states that her intentions of writing a book “about [Deborah’s] mother” are because she “was surprised no one seemed to know anything about her” (52). Skloot further proves her point of respecting the personalities of the Lacks family through her interviews for family history and her travels to Clover for relatives, as well as her information on the scientists and their feelings of using the HeLa cells through talks. However, Skloot’s research ultimately leads to her discovery that “‘science is not the highest value in society’” (321). This point is further emphasized with references to Christoph Lengauer, a “young Hopkins cancer researcher” who makes a FISH painting of Henrietta’s cells to show “‘how grateful [he is] for their donation” (234). Additional references are made to Roland Pattillo’s conferences and their mentioning of respect amidst all the negativity directed towards the Lacks family. Through Skloot’s research, Deborah and the rest of the Lacks family have been able to get answers to their complicated questions and Skloot is able to display her perspective

In "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks" by Rebecca Skloot the issue of restorative morals emerges. Restorative morals have been an issue that causes awesome arrangements of issues for patients and specialists. Patients are compelled to decide, specialists abuse morals amid trials, and specialists give 'assistance' without understanding assent. In "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks" Skloot indicates how specialists abused Henrietta Lacks to create "… the main interminable human cells… " (Skloot, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks). To do this specialists needed to take a bit of cervical tissue "however nobody had revealed to Henrietta that… " (Skloot, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks) something would have been removed from her body.

The family feared what they believed were "night doctors who abducted black people for medical research"(Skloot). Because there was still discrimination then, they feared the worst. In my opinion the Lacks family was angry with the scientists using HeLa cells from Henrietta without the family's consent. I think they wanted everyone to know that Henrietta didn't donate her cells, they were taken without asking and without telling the family what was going to happen to them.

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.

HeLa cells are used to conduct these studies. One of the most important studies were done at the Tuskegee Institute and the studies went so well, HeLa cells were being shipped by the trillions. Various studies start all around the world with the HeLa cells as a variable. These studies include but are not limited to the study of chromosomes, cloning, HPV, AIDs, influenza, and parkinson's. Through all these studies, Gey tries to keep Henrietta’s name out of the picture and this results into the Lack’s family never knowing of Henrietta’s success. After a while, Henrietta’s true name is leaked. “So many people knew Henrietta’s name, someone was bound to leak it” (105). “Sure enough, on November 2, 1953, the Minneapolis Star became the first publication to name the woman behind the HeLa cells.” (105).

The theme I have selected for my book is “...Despite one’s best effort, humanity will not always return the favor. Life is not a balanced scale; life is a dance of give and take that can leave one person on top of the world and another buried six feet under.” This theme can be linked to my poster’s slogan: “It is possible to be chained by the stories we have yet to tell,” because the chains that bound the Lacks family were the cause of the unjustness they were subjected to. The image I selected represents my slogan and the characters in The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks because they felt locked up, left to rot as they wondered what had happened to their mother. The chains are the lies, the secrets, and the manipulations that the Lacks family