The Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks By Rebecca Skloot

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot explores the historically racist treatment of black patients by doctors. Henrietta was alienated by her doctors and was not educated about her disease and the things they were doing to her body. Elsie, Henrietta’s daughter, was wrongfully experimented on by the doctors that were supposed to be taking care of her in the mental institution. African Americans as a whole race have always been ostracized by their doctors and scientists since their history in America began.

“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 scientific community is culpable of viewing Henrietta Lacks as an abstraction rather than a human being in that they disregarded her right to privacy in extracting her 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.

In expressing the power of privilege, Skloot talks about race, poverty, and the powerlessness that come from the absence of education. She discusses scientific ambition that Henrietta’s cells used to treat basic flu and cancers. The goal of taking the cells was

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.

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 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 the novel, the immortal life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot. Henrietta was a young black woman of 5 children whose cancerous cells were taken out without her knowledge. Those cells later became one of the most important tools in medicine. The case of John Moore vs. Regents of the University of California has similar ethical issues as present in the novel.

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

First, the waver that Henrietta signed at John Hopkins gave permission for her doctors to (according to Skloot) (2010) “perform any operative procedures…that they deem necessary in the proper surgical care and treatment of _________________,” (pg. 31). Henrietta’s cells were taken, but not for treating her cancer. Second, because of her race and economic status, Henrietta was an easy target. . In 1951, at John Hopkins, when Henrietta received treatment at a colored operating room. Because of this segregation, The treatment was not as well and the doctors had the ability do take advantage of her but Henrietta did not have much of a choice. In the operating room, Richard TeLinde did not ask her permission to take her tissues, Even if he had, Henrietta would not have been able to say no. Skloot (2010) describes this as a time of “benevolent deception” (pg. 63), where the doctors hid information from the patients at the hospital and patients didn’t question doctors, especially when the doctors were white and the patients were black. This is what made Henrietta such a target at John Hopkins. Additionally, no one thought to tell Henrietta afterwards what George Gey had discovered about her special

The treatment of African Americans in The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks demonstrates the lack of ethics in the United States health care system during the 1950s and 1960s. Under the impression that medical doctors at Johns Hopkins Hospital were solely injecting radium treatment for cervical cancer, Henrietta Lacks laid on the surgical bed. During this procedure Dr. Lawrence Wharton Jr. shaved two pieces of tissue from her vagina, one from a healthy cervical tissue and one from the cancerous tumor, without Henrietta’s prior knowledge. After recovering from her surgery Henrietta exited the door marked, “Blacks Only,” the door that signified the separation between White and African-American patients. Had Henrietta been White, would the

In both "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks" and "The Lives of a Cell" they discuss cancer and how through the use of cells,we could create the right medicine. In "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks" the author talks about the immortal cell line and how doctors took it without her permission. Henrietta's cells have made history in the advancement of not only cancer treatment but other illnesses.The doctors that cut out small fragments of Henrietta's cells didn't even ask for consent.Most people believe the doctors didn't see Henrietta's as a person that's why the doctors believed they did not need consent. Whether due to ethnic reasons we do not know, but we do know that Henrietta's cells still live on today and her body was not her own.

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

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.