The Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks By Rebecca Skloot

Deborah was Henrietta's only surviving daughter and fourth child. Once Deborah found out about her mother spent most of her life just wondering of her mother’s death and wondering if what killed her mother may even be the death of her in the future. Deborah became very interested and maybe even a little obsessed with her mother and craved knowing and learn more and more about her mother every day. Deborah and Skloot became very close in the making of “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks”.

When the cells finally began growing in Gey’s lab it was seen as a huge advance in the world of science, seeing as no one had succeeded beforehand, this was a great accomplishment on his part. However, Henrietta was never told of this or how important her cells had become, she simply continued living without knowing that the cancerous cells inside her were continuing to grow despite receiving “treatment” from the doctors. Her only treatment was a small patch of radiation sewn directly into her cervix on the area where the tumor had appeared, after some tests showed that the tumor had disappeared she continued with her normal life of farming, raising her children, and enjoying life. Henrietta never complained about any side effects of the radiation, however, it eventually would make her infertile and cause her skin on her torso to turn black.

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks tells the story of Henrietta Lacks. In the early 1951 Henrietta discovered a hard lump on the left of the entrance of her cervix, after having unexpected vaginal bleeding. She visited the Johns Hopkins hospital in East Baltimore, which was the only hospital in their area where black patients were treated. The gynecologist, Howard Jones, indeed discovers a tumor on her cervix, which he takes a biopsy off to sent it to the lab for diagnosis. In February 1951 Henrietta was called by Dr. Jones to tell about the biopsy results: “Epidermoid carcinoma of the cervix, Stage I”, in other words, she was diagnosed with cervical cancer. Before her first radium treatment, surgeon dr.

Henrietta Lacks had cervical cancer and Doctor TeLinda took samples of her cells without telling her or her family. Doctor TeLinda put the samples in a tubes with the help of Doctor Gey exchange for same of Lacks cells, they named them “HeLa” (Skloot 41). A young woman named Rebecca Skloot found out about Henrietta Lacks, Skloot was only sixteen. After research into Lacks, her family, and “HeLa” cells for about ten years, she wrote an award-winning book, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. Skloot was a winner of several awards, including the 2010 Chicago Tribune Heartland Prize for Nonfiction, the 2010 Wellcome Trust Book Prize, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science’s Award for Excellence in Science Writing, the 2011

Who was Henrietta Lacks? What if I told you, had she not lived, your life would be very different today? Her name was Henrietta, she was a poor, uneducated, African –American woman, but she is known today as HeLa, and primarily only in the scientific community. Henrietta existed on this earth a short 31 years, but her cells live on eternally. Cells that she never knew were taken from her, dare I say stolen, at the most vulnerable time of her life, during surgery for terminal cervical cancer. Five years ago I read Rebecca Skloot’s groundbreaking account The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks and I was captivated by Henrietta’s story and the effect that this medical deception had on her family. Her story should be told.

When Henrietta was diagnosed with cancer they went through the proper and appropriate treatment for that time period. There were no set guidelines at the time for how to tell if someone had cancer or not and when they found it they responded immediately and knowledgably. The response to the contamination of HeLa cells was also a very good catch by Lewis Coriell and if this would of never been discovered the progression of research today would be nowhere near as advanced as it is because we would have eventually had to start over. However, even though at one point the cells used in the ATCC were considered not of the original HeLa cell at the time Coriell did what was best for the scientific community. To continue the response to the findings of Henrietta’s cancer being sexually transmitted was a huge asset to the research in HPV vaccines other diseases. This very first finding was the start to a journey of AIDS prevention and many more modern day diseases. If the responses to this particular levels of public health related to this book had been different today’s world would be without many treatment plans, medications, and even certain indicators of diseases. The individuals in this book were indirectly affected by HeLa cells but the people who were directly affected would agree with her cousin Cliff that it was a miracle her cells could be used cure diseases, their

Henrietta’s first daughter, Elsie, had been sent to Crownsville, a mental institution for the negro insane. Skloot states, “I later learned that while Elsie was at Crownsville, scientists conducted research on the patients without their consent, including a study titled ‘Pneumoencephalographic and skull x-ray studies in 100 epileptics’ […] involved drilling holes into the skulls of research subjects […] to allow crisp x-rays of the brain through the skull” (Skloot 276). Crownsville went about doing these horrific studies because they knew that their patients would be unable to defend themselves, nor give a decent form of voluntary consent. The patients were viewed as inferior. Nobody cared to think how they would feel about going to sleep one night and then waking up with holes in their head.

The problem also was that Henrietta still died from her cancer even when she had those treatable cells. She was not helped but yet was used as a guinea pig in a genetic lab-testing lab without knowing until she died. Her death was extremely painful. They kept Henrietta’s dead body frozen and cultured her cells in Tuskegee. They made a lot of money not telling Henrietta’s family, which is unethical. They kept from telling the family even after her death, which today it would be illegal. Even though her cells were not immortal the cells duplicated for years. Part of Henrietta’s family were concerned about getting money, the other half cared about how Henrietta’s medical records were handled by people they didn’t know, and was not confidentially kept.

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks is an amazing, real life story about an African American woman in 1950’s United States who contributed to science without ever knowing, but written from the author, Rebecca Skloot’s perspective as a scientific investigator. In the beginning of the book we learn a lot about Henrietta from her rough childhood to her marriage and five kids. From the start of this book it is obvious that Henrietta knows she is sick. She found a lump on her cervix so she went to the free clinic for African Americans at Johns Hopkins Hospital. It was determined that this “knot” that Mrs. Lacks found was a tumor. During the process of testing and treating the tumor with radium xray, Dr. George Gay had some of the tumor’s tissue

In the book, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, by Rebecca Skloot, the family of Henrietta is never given true Justice. Justice is fair treatment. When righteousness, equitableness, and respect is shown that is true justice. Religion, race, or gender should never affect how a person should be treated, they deserve to be given equal justice to any other person. The Lacks family never received justice. Therefore, they were never informed that John Hopkins toke Henrietta's cells and they never knew that they would be so helpful to science. At the time Henrietta’s cells were taken, there was no law for informing or obtaining consent from cell donors. Until years later did the family of Henrietta find out that the famous HeLa cells were not Helen Lane’s or Helen Larson’s cells, but they were Henrietta Lacks Cells. Since the family of Henrietta never got the recognition they deserved and never made any money off of her cells, they never got the justice they deserved.

Rebecca Sloot starts her book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, “There’s a photo on my wall of a woman I’ve never met, its left corner torn and patched together with tape”. Sloot goes on and speaks about all of her curiosity that this picture has caused her. In the same passage she explains, “ Beneath the photo, a caption says her name is “Henrietta Lacks, Helen Lane or Helen Larson”. It may seem crazy that no one knew the true identity of something as amazing as a few cells for years. In this book Sloot brings out many ethical issue in the medical field, journalism and in research.

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 effect the discovery and creation of the HeLa cells made on the science community and Henrietta’s family had a domino effect. Both had different opinions and beliefs on the matter; this led to some difficult questions asked of the family and of the medical community. Due to the new and advanced methods of experimentation, the HeLa cells made to to the field of science, the scientific community and the media failed to remember that Henrietta and her family were not abstractions but actual people. Rebecca Skloot, however, took into account the Lack’s family, she inquired both the history of the HeLa cells as well as the Lacks family, treating them as actual people with inalienable rights.

Gey found that Henrietta cells were different than the usual cells. It was never happening before when Gey found a cell that grows with mythological intensity in the lab. Usually, every cell will die or survive for a while in the lab. “However, the Henrietta’s cancer cells seemed unstoppable as long as they had food and warmth” (Skloot 65). This was the first immortal human cells that they called HeLa. This name came from the first two letters of the name Henrietta Lacks.

“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.