The Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks By Rebecca Skloot

The non-fiction book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, written by Rebecca Skloot, details the happenings and life of Henrietta Lacks, an African American woman and tobacco farmer who became a medical miracle in the 1950’s. The book is written in an attempt to chronicle both the experiences and tribulations of Henrietta Lacks and her family, as well as the events that led to, and resulted from, research done on Henrietta Lacks’ cells. Henrietta was a very average African American woman in this period; she had only a seventh-grade level education, and followed traditional racial and gender roles by spending her time has a mother and caretaker, as well as working on farms throughout her life until the involvement of the US in World War II brought her and her husband, “Day” Lacks, comparatively better work opportunities in industrial steel mills. However, after her death in 1951 Henrietta became much more than average to doctors at John Hopkins when the discovered that cells extracted from her cancerous tissue continued to live and grow much longer than any other tissue samples. Further investigation and isolation of these thriving cells led to the creation of the first ever immortal human cell line in medical history. The incredible progress in medicine made possible by Henrietta Lack’s tissue cells were not without downfalls, though. The treatments and experiences received by Henrietta and the effects it had on her and her family demonstrate both racial and gender

This is a story about Love and cells; and begins with the City of Baltimore, Maryland. Henrietta Lacks’ and her HeLa cells, while cells were derived from patients they could grow for a short period of time, they ignominiously died and could not be propagated. This changed in 1951 when a woman by the name of Henrietta Lacks was biopsied for a painful tumor and later died October 4, 1951. Cells derived from her cervical cancer were found to thrive in an artificial environment. This gave rise to the birth of biotechnology and the techniques learned from propagating these cells would eventually lead to advancements in finding a Polio vaccine. The Johns Hopkins Hospital, and Biomedical Research Facility, of the United States, only a 34 minutes’ drive distance northwest of Annapolis, Maryland is in certain ways Alien. I was first introduced to this person of interest; Ms. Henrietta Lacks while in my Pasadena College, English 1A class, and the moment I heard about her, spoken about, from my professor’s required assignment, a Narrative Essay paper. The Immortal Henrietta Lacks. Henrietta; also

After her death in 1951, for six decades, Henrietta Lacks did not exist in the eyes of the society, but her cells did. How? Well, the answer is quite simple. HeLa Cells are the first immortal human cells. These cells never die and multiply every twenty-four hours. After spending 10 years to perfect her first book, author of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Rebecca Skloot essentially captured the life, the death, and aftermath of Henrietta Lacks’ life. With controversial issues regarding science, ethics, race, and class Skloot takes us on an extraordinary journey. From the “colored” ward of Johns Hopkins Hospital in the 1950s to stark white laboratories with freezers full of HeLa cells, from Henrietta’s small, dying hometown of Clover,

A conflict between “scientific progress” and individual ownership the body, “whether you own or have the right to control your tissues” is an abstract debate key to Henrietta’s history (Skloot 316-317). These intangible ethical issues that Skloot discusses are interrelated with the story of HeLa- racism, exploitation, and the moral as well as legal dilemmas of tissue ownership. While HeLa cells themselves may be tangible, aspects of their story are clearly abstract. Rebecca Skloot explores both concrete and conceptual aspects by telling the narratives of both the “‘birth of HeLa, and the death of Mrs. Lacks,’” (Skloot 224). These stories illuminate each other; the reader sees both scientific and the social subjects in a new perspective as components of a single narrative. An alternate title for The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks could be HeLa and Henrietta’s Eternal Legacy, as this illustrates the integral juxtaposition of the story- the narrative of science and discovery that surround the physical cells Henrietta left behind, as well as tale of the social and ethical conflicts that comprise Mrs. Lacks’s

Henrietta Lacks, a resilient African American women, had to face a life of disappointing medical treatment because she was perpetuated by society as someone who is not worth saving or treating properly. This was due to the social status of blacks who were segregated and subjected for their skin color in the early-mid 1900's. The story starts off mysterious and provided the reader with a picture frame of what the situation is because in the start there was something uncanny about the cancer cells on Henrietta Lacks’s cervix. The HeLa cells reproduced boisterously in a lab at Johns Hopkins the first human cells ever to do so. HeLa became an instant biological celebrity, traveling to research labs all over the world.

“The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks” by Rebecca Skloot, is a story of a young mother who dies of cervical cancer and whose cells are taken without her consent for research. These cells, known as HeLa, go on to provide many important scientific discoveries. However, the cells are very controversial as her family is never compensated or given information about what these cells are used for. Henrietta’s cancer is found late and severe. She dies, leaving behind a husband, five children, and her immortal HeLa cell line.

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks is a very powerful and moving book that should be read by all lay people, young and old, doctors, scientists and especially researchers in the medical field. They have an obligation to read this book so that history should not repeat itself. Anyone that wants to study DNA genes and cells should get written consent from the patients and their families. Rebecca Skloot, takes us on an extraordinary adventure about the life and death of the protagonist Henrietta Lacks; who was a southern “colored” person diagnosed with cervical cancer during her stay at John Hopkins Hospital during the 1950s. After a year of “Doctors examining her inside and out, pressing her stomach, inserting new catheters into her bladder…..needles

In The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Rebecca Skloot tells the story of a woman who carried the first immortal cell line known as HeLa. Many ethical questions were raised in regards to the practices used to retrieve Henrietta’s cells which brought on numerous challenges for her family and friends. With her cells being the basis for many scientific discoveries, Henrietta declining to give consent for the use of her cells would completely change the world of science. With her cells, millions of lives have been saved. Her cells were also vital in creating the polio vaccine, cloning, gene mapping, research with HIV/AIDS, and even cancer research.

“The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks” by Rebecca Skloot, is the story of a young mother who is diagnosed and treated for cervical cancer. During her cancer treatment, her cells are taken without her consent for research. These cells, known as HeLa, go on to provide many important scientific discoveries. However, the cells are very controversial as her family is never compensated or given the proper information about what these cells are used for. Henrietta’s cancer is found late and severe. She dies, leaving behind a husband, five children, and her immortal HeLa cell line.

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 by Rebecca Skloot is about a human named Henrietta Lacks who has an extraordinary story. The unruly dispute between the relationship with her personal family members and that of doctors, scientist, and authority figures. When it was discovered that she had cervical cancer Richard TeLinde was collecting cell samples unbeknownst to her or even being asked if she wanted to be a donor. All of the cells would eventually be given to scientist George Guy who spent his whole life on a mission for immortal human cells which came in the form of HeLa. With the only time asking for consent was when they asked David “Day” Lacks her husband to let them perform an autopsy. That brings up the topic of consent as well as the unspoken trust between patients and their doctors which they take advantage of. As a person multiple factors worked against Henrietta since she was a woman all while being African American. John Moore a white male who had hairy cell leukemia is another illustration of someone else who had the wool pulled over their eyes by the system. Even when he took the controversy to the courts the judge initially threw out the case with the conclusion of being the Supreme Court ruled against him.

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.

The book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot, was a nonfiction story about the life of Henrietta Lacks, who died of cervical cancer in 1951. Henrietta did not know that her doctor took a sample of her cancer cells a few months before she died. “Henrietta cells that called HeLa were the first immortal human cells ever grown in a laboratory” (Skloot 22). In fact, the cells from her cervix are the most important advances in medical research. Rebecca was interested to write this story because she was anxious with the story of HeLa cells. When she was in biology class, her professor named Donald Defler gave a lecture about cells. Defler tells the story about Henrietta Lacks and HeLa cells. However, the professor ended his

On February 8, 1951 a sample of cancerous cervical tissue was taken from Henrietta Lacks, a patient at John Hopkins Hospital who would later die from an aggressive strain of cervical cancer on October 4, 1951. The sample was taken during her first radium treatment without her knowledge by Doctor Howard W. Jones, and sent to the cell culture lab where George and Margret Gey would grow her cells. The sample was taken without consent; this calls the ethics of the hospital, and doctors into question. The Lacks family knew little of what Henrietta’s cells would later go onto do or how they could be immortal. Doctors, scientist and the media treated the Lacks family poorly. Although the HeLa cells would create the path to some of the greatest advances

“The Immortal life of Henrietta Lacks” written by Rebecca Skloot exposes the truth about a colored woman, Henrietta Lacks, who died from cancer leaving five children and a husband behind. Before her death doctors took her cells,without her or her family consent, to do there own research and experiments. They discovered that her cells were immortal, they became the first immortal cells known as the HeLa cells..After the discoverment the Lacks family were never told that Henrietta Lacks cells were used, bought and sold. Through the HeLa cells the scientist had made money while Henrietta kids were mistreated and were in poor situations.It wasnt till 25 years later that the Lacks family found out about the HeLa cells doing miracles. Rebecca Skloot though “The immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks” was able to explain the unethical situations that the Lacks family faced after Henrietta’s death.