The Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks By Rebecca Skloot

“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 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 Lacks was hospitalized at a time when doctors often lied or withheld information when they felt it best (63). Often information

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,

In the book “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks” the author, Rebecca Skloot, discusses many important points. The main point of this informative novel is how doctors from Hopkins hospital captured cells from an African American woman to study possible outcomes to many new ideas. This main point unfolds an analysis of how this event made many new discoveries, immortal memories, and prevented Henrietta’s family from varies negative situations. Firstly, this event helped unfold many new discoveries to medicine and to the medical revolution.

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks was an interesting read. It includes some interesting points I have not thought of being in the medical field. Henrietta lacks is the main character who gets diagnosed with cervical cancer and passes away in 1951. Her cancerous cells which were illegally passed to a doctor were the first immortal human cell line, named HeLa cells. Rebecca Skloot is the narrator of the book she goes through how the access to Henrietta's cancerous cells allowed for important discoveries to help aid others in the 21st century.

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, by Rebecca Skloot is a book that documents the author’s firsthand conversations and experiences with the Lacks family about their deceased relative, Henrietta Lacks. Henrietta had a unique type of cervical cancer, and before she passed away, doctors removed some of her cells without telling her. Those cells were later named HeLa and used to advance scientific research. HeLa also created a source of profit both directly and indirectly for scientists and mass producers of the cell line. In this book, the author aims to educate its readers on medical and scientific ethics, to argue against a researcher, scientist, or doctor’s ability to extract tissues from a person without consent.

P#1 Doctors and Hospitals prey on the weakness of their patients in order to do experiments. In the book of Henrietta Lacks she was diagnosed with cancer and went to Hopkins hospital to get treatment but instead they took her cells and did research and gave them to other scientists who made millions off of Henrietta cells . These cells helped find vaccine for polio and treatment for sexually transmitted disease. (“Rebecca” )Since she was poor and only reached to 6 grade education they did not give her accurate information of their hospital service . John Hopkins thought that they can do whatever they want to do with their patients since they were the only hospital that treated African American for free . In Alabama 1932, the Public Health

When it comes to putting your life in someone else’s hands the stakes are even higher, there shouldn’t be a gap in between. We go see a doctor for advice, for prescriptions, anything to make us feel better and everyone deserves the right to be given the treatment they desire. In Henrietta’s case, she was uneducated, of color, and not wealthy but she is a patient and if she had been white the doctors may have attended to her better. It wouldn’t be far to say that one person deserve more than

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.

In the novel “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks” written by Rebecca Skloot, there is multiple times where Henrietta, the protagonist, is subjected to unethical acts. She is a poor, colored woman in 1951 who is discriminated against, lied to, and essentially treated with the least regards to her own well-being. Yet, the most outrageous act is when the doctors seemingly forgot to tell Henrietta that the procedures they perform on her leave her infertile. The doctors did this out of greed aiming to strive ahead and be more successful in the medical field then their opponents. Henrietta worked hard to raise a family, which was always her top priority, but due to selfish doctors who failed to think about what was truly best for their patient, Henrietta lost the ability that was most dear to her, the chance to have more children.

In the case of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, the state of health at the time was troubled. Many people suffered from polio and sexually transmitted diseases (which many did not know the cure). The overall mission of public health is the fulfillment of society’s interest in assuring the conditions in which people may be healthy. Stated in the book, researchers had trouble keeping cell cultures alive long enough to do enough research and or make any groundbreaking discoveries. By heavily violating the ethics of the situation with Henrietta Lacks coming in to get help, Richard Wesley TeLinde was able to get a sample from Henrietta’s cervix without her consent.

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.

There were 884 million doctor’s visits in the US alone in 2014, another 125 million counting hospital visits. It is clear that society trusts the doctors and nurses that it employs to uphold high standards to carry on with the task of saving lives. Our society doesn’t blink an eye and puts all its faith into doctors without question. Society assumes that all doctors are good and ignores the potential of an immoral doctor. A study conducted by the NCBI showed that 90% of all medical students have witnessed an unethical medical practice performed by the doctors that society had trusted. This means that if you had any doctor’s visits in the last few years, most likely you were a victim of an unethical practice. This is the situation that Henrietta Lacks faced at John Hopkins Hospital in the 1950s. Rebecca Skloot details the accounts of mistreatment and abuse that followed Henrietta Lacks in her novel The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. Henrietta Lacks was an African American mother seeking cancer treatment at John Hopkins Hospitals, who ended up to be one of the biggest medical discoveries at the time. Doctors at the hospital discovered the power of her cells and in doing so abused and misuse Henrietta Lacks in the process, which ultimately led to her death. Although Henrietta Lack’s cells proved to beneficial to millions of people, the misconduct performed by the doctors is uncalled for and violates the oath that every doctor had sworn to. There is no