The Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks By Rebecca Skloot

her medical records were released to a reporter and published without her family’s permission. Her sons were angry when they learned that people were buying and selling Henrietta’s cells, which helped start a multibillion dollar industry. But unfortunately for them they had no money.

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.

In expressing the power of privilege, Skloot talks about race, poverty, and the powerlessness that come from the absence of education. She discusses scientific ambition that Henrietta’s cells used to treat basic flu and cancers. The goal of taking the cells was

Henrietta Lacks died never knowing the impact her life would have on the world of medicine. A poor, black woman living in Baltimore, Maryland in the 1950s, Henrietta was diagnosed with cervical cancer and died only nine short months after her diagnosis at the age of thirty-one. The mother of five children, Henrietta most likely died thinking her family would be her legacy. Little did she know her doctor at John Hopkins hospital, George Gey, had taken some of her cells before she died. With Henrietta’s cells, Dr. Gey was finally able to achieve a goal he had been working toward for decades – creating the first line of immortal cells (Freeman). These cells have been used for countless scientific research and have solidified Henrietta Lacks’ place

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 a poor, black woman who died of cervical cancer in the fifties. Her cells were taken from her during surgery, without her knowledge. However, back then there were no laws about informed consent and the mindset was entirely different. Researchers knew little about cells and how they function. Her immortal cells allowed researchers to have an ample amount of resources to be able to study cells and later on develop vaccines and treatments for many diseases. Even though her cells were cancerous, they still shared many basic characteristics of a normal cell, which allowed researchers to learn a lot about a cell’s basic function. Her story explains how medical research has developed and how health care has progressed over the past sixty years.

The scientific community’s careless mistreatment of the Lacks family began with dehumanizing Henrietta’s cells in the very first lab. Generalizing people can especially be easy when one is working with their cells in a lab. The many scientists working on Henrietta’s cells must have found it easy to separate the cells from the person and reduce them to tools to aid them in the task at hand. This view may be harmless when it comes to the individual scientist, and the individual cell, but this view extended to the entire Lacks family and caused them much harm. “Meanwhile, Victor McKusick and Susan Hsu had just published the results of their research in

Henrietta Lacks died in 1951 of cervical cancer, leaving behind a husband, five children and some cells taken from her without her permission. These cells continue to revolutionize the scientific field today and have played an integral role in some of the most important advances in medicine: cloning, chemotherapy, gene mapping, the polio vaccine and in vitro fertilization. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks answers a lot of questions regarding the Lacks family, but also poses a number of questions regarding ethics, consent and how far society is willing to go to make medical advances.

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks is a true story of a poor, Southern African-American tobacco farmer who died in 1951 at the very young age of 31 years old from cervical cancer. Little did she know that cells harvested from her tumor, which were obtained without her consent have lived on and on and became one of the most important tools in medicine today. Despite Henrietta’s story being full of legal and ethical issues, the story was one filled with success and anguish. Success for science as her cells served as advancement in medical research and development; yet was sorrowful for Henrietta and her family. This story occurred during a time of segregation in the United States, when Henrietta Lacks believed she

“He told them he was testing their immune systems; he said nothing about injecting them with someone else’s malignant cells” (Skloot 128). This is one of the many incidences in Skloot’s book, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, where Skloot argued that medical research and advancements were held at a higher importance than fair treatment and rights of the patients and their families. Henrietta and the Lacks family are just one example. Skloot developed her argument by including information about uninformed consent and the Lacks family, providing examples of instances where doctors took advantage of their patients for their own benefit, and gave information about the Lacks family and their current medical situations. In order to adequately

In 1951, Henrietta Lacks was diagnosed with cervical cancer at John Hopkins Hospital. Without any consent, Henrietta’s doctors took tissue samples from her cervix and attempted to grow them and keep them alive. These cells, known as HeLa cells, began to grow at an unbelievable rate; The HeLa cell became vital for the development of vaccines and other scientific research. However because of Henrietta’s race and economic standpoint, Henrietta Lacks and the rest of the Lacks family was exploited by doctors. The exploitation of the family allowed the doctors and researchers to benefit scientifically and monetarily.

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

In 1951 there was a young black lady who was named Henrietta Lacks. Henrietta Lacks was a tobacco farmer in Clover, Virginia. Her mother died giving birth and her father moved the family to Clover, where the children were distributed among some of the close relatives. In January of 1951 she went to John Hopkins hospital, which was the only place close to her that treated black patients at the time. Lacks described a “knot” in her stomach that ended up being cervical cancer. During her treatments two samples from her

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

This research paper is based on the findings from the book “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks”. What you will read and come to know is nonfiction. I wish I could put the pictures of what I have seen and read together here for you to perhaps get a better understanding. A story based on not Henrietta’s life being that of immortality, but rather cancer cells removed from her body without her knowledge. These were the first cancer cells to reproduce outside of her body. You will come to know about Henrietta, her cancer, her cells, and her immortal life. Perhaps we can all learn to appreciate life in greater means of appreciation after reading and knowing the life and immortal afterlife of Henrietta Lacks. You will learn about a woman, who like us, had a family, and ended up not being able to truly live life to its fullest. Making us all realize just how cancer is and the amazing research that came from being able to reproduce her cells. Not just for cancer but for various other illnesses that plague so many of us. My hope is that you take away from this a better understanding of a time we do not know, for the ups and downs of science and the possibility of immortal life.