The Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks By Rebecca Skloot

The story “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks” that’s written by Rebecca Skloot. The author talks about a story happened in the 1950’s, and it’s effects still happening. The aspect that controls the story is power of privilege. In all places, in all times, power of privilege is specified for people who called elite. They get this power to control situations, but it does not mean they all deserve handling this power. This power created to control everything and improve or develop it. It is just considered under the actions that seem like what Skloot mentions in the story, but this power is related to all things in our life. Now, let’s go back to the story, and see the effects of that power under the wrong usage. At that period of time, the power of privilege was controlled by whites. The separation that was between blacks and whites, and the arrogance that some white people had encouraged them to insult black people. Dr. George Gey is the one of the doctors who used their power to do something no one at that time knew it’s consequences, which is taking the cells. On the other hand, Henrietta whose cells were stolen with out her permission. Finally, the results mostly affected Deborah which is Henrietta’s daughter.

The definition of power is a person or thing that possesses or exercises authority or influence. Power is gained by people over time, but it comes much easier to those born into a privilege, which is a right, immunity, or benefit enjoyed only by a person beyond the advantages of most. It is apparent that power and privilege go hand in hand. In the book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Rebecca Skloot focuses on two stories: the development of the HeLa cells and the lives of Henrietta’s family members. While in the scientific world of HeLa cells, the power is held by the doctors such as George Gey and others because of their rank in society above common people. Being born into privilege was not a luxury the Lacks family enjoyed; the path to power for the Lacks was much more difficult.

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

Henrietta was an African American woman who grew up in Clover, Virginia and was raised by her grandfather, Tommy Lacks because her mother died after giving birth to her 10th child. Henrietta worked with her cousin in the family’s tobacco farm, went to school until 6th grade, and had her first child with Day Lacks (her cousin) at the age of 14, and they got married when she was 20 years old and he was 25. After giving birth to her 5th child, Deborah, Henrietta goes

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,

Many people would assume that, because of HeLa’s impact on society, the Lacks family is probably very wealthy and well informed about HeLa cells; unfortunately, that is not the case. Not only did the Lacks feel taken advantage of by the medical community, but it wasn’t until an article by Howard Jones in December 1971 that Henrietta’s real name was finally revealed. That same article was used to inform Bobbette Lacks, Henrietta’s daughter-in-law, that the immortal cells she had been reading about in the paper were Henrietta’s. Bobbette was the first member of the Lacks family to learn about the fate of Henrietta’s cells and she immediately ran to the family yelling, “Part of your mother, it’s alive!”(181). The family felt misinformed, confused, betrayed and most of all, angry. In 1976, Mike Rodgers published an article in Rolling Stone that informed the Lacks family that people were buying and selling Henrietta’s cells. The family immediately accused Hopkins of withholding money from them. Lawrence, Henrietta’s eldest son, was quoted saying, “Hopkins say they gave them cells away, but they made millions! It’s not fair! She’s the most important person in the world and her family living in poverty. If our mother so important to

They thought the doctors were still trying to fix her,” (Skloot 65). Henrietta’s family is still being treated poorly today, being lied to and never got a profit from the cells. “’She’s the most important person in the world and her family living in poverty. If our mother so important to science, why can’t we get health insurance?’”(Skloot 168). In fact, Henrietta herself is one of the major reasons the debate on whether it should be legal to cell organs and cells is a debate today. “HeLa cells as the springboard to launch the first industrial-scale for-profit cell distribution center,” (Skloot 101). Although there are several arguments in the debate over selling body parts, three key arguments deal with the topics of money, helping others, and personal choice. Considering all of the topics, the selling of body parts for profit should be

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.

Henrietta Lacks is woman, whose cells have been used for 63 years after her death in 1951, and will continue to be used as long as they are continue to grow. Henrietta Lacks was an African American woman who was born in the south, who married her cousin and moved up north. After giving birth to her last child, she finds that she has cancer. The doctors took a sample of her cancer cells without her permission, and now have millions of dollars but the family is still hasn’t received the money they are rightfully entitled to. Many of healthcare and entitlements that are around today, are due to the ill treatment of Henrietta and her family. Still to this day, there is very little known about Henrietta Lacks, even with the book out, and she has

Henrietta Lacks discovered a knot in her womb one day and went to the Hopkins Hospital, in the gynecology clinic for "colored" people. Henrietta had been telling her friends for more than a year that something was hurting and it

Henrietta Lacks was a black woman that grew up in the rural segregated south; her lifespan was from 1921 to1951. She grew up on her grandfather Lacks tobacco farm after her mother died giving birth to her tenth child. From the time she was four years old, she picked, cleaned, and harvested tobacco leaves, spending little or no time in school; she had at most a 6th grade education. By the time she was fourteen, Henrietta had given birth

Henrietta Lacks was an African American woman who had cervical cancer and had tissues taken from her body without her consent. This, along with her death, affected the lives of everyone in her family, especially her kids. Even though the children had wanted to sue Johns Hopkins for what they did, Deborah was able to help them come to peace with the situation- as much as they could. Deborah’s insistence to learn more about their mother helped them to turn their focus on Henrietta’s cells and how they majorly contributed to science. Rebecca Skloot was able to gain the family’s trust, because she wanted to learn more about Henrietta Lacks and her family, not only the cells that the whole world had known them to

In the novel The Immortal life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot, the story of Henrietta Lacks, an African American woman, whose suffering changed the course of medical research is told through the eyes of the Lacks family. Skloot explains the story told to her by the Lacks family after much convincing that Thirty year old Henrietta Lacks was desperately looking for help in 1951 at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore for what she found and called a "knot" on her cervix. She was diagnosed with cervical cancer and treated with radium and x-ray therapy. In the process, some of the tissue was removed from her tumor and sent down to George Gey 's lab at Hopkins to be cultured, or grown, in test tubes. Gey was the head of the tissue culture department at Hopkins and he 'd been trying for years to get cells to divide infinitely in the lab so that the scientific community could have an infinite supply of human cells to experiment on. Neither Henrietta nor any of her family members knew about the tissue sample—and neither Gey nor Hopkins ever informed them. They didn 't inform them even after the cells began to grow amazingly fast and Gey and the rest of the scientific world realized they 'd just made a gigantic breakthrough in medical technology. Eventually, the never ending reproducing cells was used to create the polio vaccine, yet no recognition was ever given to Henrietta. Skloot presents the idea of the medical and scientific hospitals being tainted and manipulated by

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot is a book written about a woman who acquired a diagnosis of cervical cancer. In 1951, Henrietta sought out help from The Johns Hopkins hospital and Dr. George Gey. Gey is over the tissue research. Gey’s hopes were to create an immortal line of human cells for scientific experimentation. Gey took a sample of Henrietta's tissue to be cultured without her knowledge.

Henrietta Lacks was a “mother of five who died of cervical cancer at only thirty-one years of age” (Gabbay). When she passed away the doctors at John Hopkins asked her husband,