The Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks Essay Outline

Henrietta Lacks is not a common household name, yet in the scientific and medical world it has become one of the most important and talked names of the century. Up until the time that this book was written, very few people knew of Henrietta Lacks and how her cells contributed to modern science, but Rebecca Skloot aimed to change this. Eventually Skloot was able to reach Henrietta’s remaining family and through them she was able to tell the story of not only the importance of the HeLa cells but also Henrietta’s life.

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

In the book, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot. She has composed this biography of Henrietta Lacks to inform her readers about the hard reality that the Lacks family went through. In order to grasp a better understanding about this novel we will first uncover some details about Henrietta and her cells. Next, we will discuss how she came from a large family and that they were originally from Virginia. Finally, we will examine what she did after she moved to Baltimore and what happened after the move throughout the first two chapters.

Henrietta Lacks was born on August 1, 1920 and passed away on October 4, 1951. Towards the end of Henrietta’s life, it was filled with pain and doctors attempting to save her, or at least find something useful for the science or medical field. On the bright side, she did have the pleasure of seeing her children and husband while staying in John Hopkins. Rebecca Skloot’s The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks illustrates the importance of family in hard times, along with the racist health care system and the advances made in science to prove that even through something detestable, something superior will come of it.

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks is a book written by Rebecca Skloot in 2010 that tells the story of Henrietta Lacks and the immortal cell line known as HeLa found in her cervical cancer cells in 1951. Rebecca Skloot first heard about Henrietta Lacks in a college biology classroom back when she was a teenager. Henrietta Lacks was a 31 years old black tobacco farmer who died of cancer, and without her or her family’s knowledge, a sample of the HeLa cell was taken from her and was used in medical researches. The HeLa cells were the first human cells to survive and multiply, and since it was taken has been used in scientific research all over the world, and have played a huge role in medical

Rebecca Skloot’s book “The immortal life of Henrietta lacks” chronicles the life, death, and immortality of Henrietta lacks. Her name is Henrietta lacks but most scientists only know her as HeLa. She was a poor southern tobacco land worker who worked on the same land her enslaved ancestors did. Henrietta was a young black woman whose cervical cancer cells became one of the most important factors in bringing about the most revolutionary advancements in both medicine and science in the twenty first century. Author Rebecca Skloot goes on a hunt to find out the story and women behind the infamous cells. After only being a given a brief summary of where the cells came at the age of sixteen. With pique curiosity skloot began to look for more information about this unknown woman only to come short with little to no information regarding her background. Deciding to take matters in her own hands she embarks in a journey that not only revealed the moving story of Henrietta and her family but the struggle the family goes through in order to stay at terms with what the field of medicine has done.

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,

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot is a nonfiction book about Henrietta Lacks, an African American woman living in the 1920’s-1950’s. When she was thirty, doctors diagnosed Henrietta with cervical cancer. Doctors at John’s Hopkins took her cells without her permission and used these cells to create the first and most widely used cell line, named HeLa after Henrietta’s initials. Soon after the doctors took Henrietta’s cells, she died from her vicious cervical cancer, however her cells lived on in the hands of scientists around the world. Since then, her cells have been mass produced and used to test the polio vaccine, research cancer, AIDS, radiation, and human longevity, and develop drugs for treating herpes, leukemia, and hemophilia. Henrietta’s family did not know anything about the HeLa cell line until twenty-five years after Henrietta’s death, and even after HeLa cells created a multimillion-dollar industry, Henrietta’s family never received compensation. Even now, Henrietta remains widely unknown, and her family can’t afford health insurance.

In the Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Rebecca Skloot presents multiple situations that involves Henrietta Lacks and other minorities. More importantly, Skloot talks about Henrietta’s poor treatment. The author provides the similarities between Henrietta Lacks, John Moore, and Mohan Chakraborthy’s treatment. She constantly defends minorities throughout the text because they received an awful treatment. In fact, the doctors were careless with their minority patients.

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot is a story about a young African American woman whose cancer cells were taken from her and grown. They became one of the most important tools in medicine. It’s also the story about how her family couldn’t afford health insurance. This book yields a horrifying look on America’s true values: economic status, religion, and discrimination. Poverty stricken people were the subject of discrimination in the United States.

The book is about Henrietta Lacks and the immortal cell line, known as HeLa, that came from Lacks's cervical cancer cells in 1951. The book is notable for its science writing and dealing with ethical issues of race and class in medical research. Skloot said that some of the information was taken from the journal of Deborah Lacks, Henrietta Lacks's daughter, as well as from "archival photos and documents, scientific and historical

The overall argument Skloot makes in this book is the lack of recognition and racial injustices pertaining to Henrietta Lacks and her immortal cells. The cells that helped evolve the polio vaccine as well as the advancement towards medicine. Henrietta never gave permission for her tissue to be taken by a man, George Otto Gey, whom she never did meet. He wanted them for his benefits and reasons. Race may have played a role that if she were a white person, Gey would have asked permission to conduct this experiment. The people who were responsible for taking her samples did not pay any respects when Henrietta passed away to her or her family that they discreetly took from. One of the last to know about these cells, HeLa more than 2 decades later,

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

“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.