The Invention Of The Polio Vaccine

In the example with the HeLa cells, a great debate was raised when the book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks was published. The debate centered around the lack of information of where the cells came from, who should have known about the original harvesting, and the lack of compensation for Henrietta’s family once the cells started generating income. Also discussed was the tendency of the medical community to

Due to the fact that Henrietta’s cells were the first human cells grown in a lab that did not die after a few cell divisions, they could be used for conducting many experiments. Her cells were considered “immortal”. This was a major breakthrough in medical and biological research. One major breakthrough was the development of a vaccine for polio. To test the vaccine the cells were quickly put into mass production in the first-ever cell production factory. Another enormous breakthrough was the successful cloning of human cells in 1955. Demand for the HeLa cells grew quickly. Since they were put into mass production, Henrietta’s cells have been mailed to scientists around the globe from “research into cancer, AIDS, the effects of radiation and toxic substances, gene mapping, and countless other scientific pursuits.” (Smith, 2002, "Wonder Woman: The Life, Death, and Life After Death of Henrietta Lacks, Unwitting Heroine of Modern Medical Science".) HeLa cells have been used to test human sensitivity to tape, glue, cosmetics, and many other products. Scientists have grown some 20 tons of her cells, and there are almost 11,000 patents involving HeLa cells. (Batts, 2010)

The HeLa cells are the first immortal cell lines. Immortal cell lines are not like other cells. These cells don’t die of old age. Immortal cells are important because these cells grow indefinitely and they survive and grow by dividing. This allows scientists to research more productively. HeLa cells are used for many researches to cure diseases and develop new drugs. With HeLa cells scientists did many researches and it led to breakthroughs in the study of leukemia, influenza, hemophilia, Parkinson’s disease, cancer, AIDS, and more. It became one of the important tools in medicine. These improvements in diseases saved lives of many people. HeLa cells are coming from an African American female from Baltimore. HeLa cells are taken from Henrietta Lacks’ cervix

HeLa simply stands for Henrietta Lacks, a young mother in the 1951 who went to the doctor complaining of vaginal bleeding and discovered she had cervical cancer. Henrietta’s cells were taken for a biopsy and were found to be like nothing ever seen before; her cells were immortal. Her cancer cells double every 20 to 24 hours and have lived on for the past 60 years. Since HeLa cells were created, our world of modern medicine has been completely changed. We now vaccines for once incurable diseases and have used the cells for cloning and other biomedical research. Although the cells have done a great deal of good,

Third, although the public health discovery of the HeLa cells improved the quality of life for many families/communities and the overall nation, it did not positively influence the quality of life of Henrietta Lacks or her family. Henrietta Lacks cells were not only taken from her body once and sent to unauthorized holders, but a second time after she passed away from cervical cancer. Neither Henrietta nor her family had given consent for Dr. Gey or the coroner to remove cells from her body and send them off for research

This book kept me drawing conclusions and I could think of the good and bad too most of it. “But Henrietta’s cells weren’t early surveying, they were growing with mythological intensity…Soon, George told a few of his closest colleagues that he thought his ab might have grown the first immortal human cells. To which they replied, Can I have some? And George said yes” (40.5). Skloot gives an insight to the secret ‘deal’ between the doctors to emphasize her point, once again, that taking cells were okay at the time without consent from the patient. The audience sees and irony here as they read about Gey’s answer to his colleagues question, can I have some, as a yes. Even though Gey doesn’t own the cells, he is giving other people Henrietta’s cells as if it is his. Henrietta, herself, is not asked the question, before Gey took away her cells without asking her. “Not lont after Henrietta’s death, planning began for a HeLa factory- a massive operation that would grow to produce trillions of HeLa cells each week. It was built for one reason: to help stop polio”(93.1). This setting shows the inhumanity that had went on in the 1900’s. Henrietta’s death was considered to be nothing at all. Henrietta’s cells were the only ones that were welcomed and meaningful, who and where that they came from didn’t matter, HeLa cells were widely spread and praised for its immortality, but Henrietta was not. She probably lived through

Henrietta Lacks, a woman whose cells have made millions of dollars, but most people don’t know her name, or her story. “She’s usually identified as Helen Lane, but often she has no name at all. She’s simply called HeLa, the code name given to the world’s first immortal human cells – her cells cut from her cervix just months before she died. Her real name is Henrietta Lacks,” (Skloot 1). Through the last few months of her life, she had major struggles with hospitals and scientists. Henrietta was in serious pain throughout the last few months, and the doctor treated her as a specimen. “Henrietta is still a miserable specimen,” (Skloot 66). Another major flaw in Henrietta story is the fact that her family was barely told of her condition of cervical

In this semester’s book club, I have enjoyed the book called The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. This book describes a true and famous cell line in the medical research field, that is the first immortal cell line in the world, HeLa cells. Not until I finished reading this fantastic book, I know that the HeLa cells were taken from a cervical cancer patient, Henrietta Lacks, without letting her know the truth about using her cells in research, even though she died. What more surprising to me was that her family lived a hard life without health insurance while the researchers make many profits from developing HeLa cells, they were never informed about their family member’s devotion to the scientific research.

The National institute of Health, Rebecca Skloot, and John Hopkins Hospital have distorted Henrietta Lacks Legacy. In 1951, the Johns Hopkins Hospital took cervical cancer cells from Henrietta Lacks, and developed the HeLa cell line. Neither Henrietta nor her family gave the hospital permission to use her cells at the time. Her cells contributed to major medical discoveries, including the development of polio vaccine. Henrietta’s family was never compensated for the money that they made off of her cells. It was not until 1973 that her children discovered, by accident, that their mother's cells, now immortalized, had become a major boon to medicine and that many people had become rich from marketing them. Ron Henrietta’s

In 1951, Henrietta Lacks went to John Hopkins Hospital because of pain and bleeding in her abdomen and was diagnosed with cervical cancer. During one of her radiation treatments, doctors took samples from Henrietta’s cervix without her knowledge to see if her cells would grow in culture and it did. Her cells were the first immortal cells to grow in culture. From there everything changed. Henrietta’s cells were used to create the polio vaccine, they went in space to what would happen to human cells in zero gravity, and many more. But as HeLa cells were bought, sold, and used for these scientific researches her family did not receive any money from it. Many people think that they should receive financial compensation but they should not.

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks focuses on many issues that Henrietta and her family have faced over the years resulting from the discovery of HeLa cells. One such issue that was recurrently present was the ethical issue of informed consent, or the lack of it, in the Lacks’ case. In the beginning when Henrietta was first being treated with radium to kill her cancerous tumor, her primary doctor, Dr. TeLinde, took a sample of the tissue and sent it to Dr. Gey, head of tissue

The experimentation on human beings has always been controversial in medical science. In the film, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks (2017), begins with Rebecca Skloot, a freelance writer, contacting Deborah Lacks about the story of her mother Henrietta (Wolfe & Dean). Henrietta was an African American woman who died of cervical cancer; her cells, however, are still around to this day. Henrietta’s cells are unlike any other human cells as her cells can replicate every 24 hours in a Petri dish and scientists have used her cells in much medical research for many years (Wolfe & Dean). Also dubbed the HeLa cells, these cells helped advance medical science in the following: finding a cure for polio, disease research, gene mapping, including

After Gey succeeded to find the immortal human cells, he started to sell HeLa cells without Henrietta’s consent. “Gey sells HeLa cells to researchers in Texas, India, New York, and many others place” (Skloot 84). He did not give any credit to Henrietta. He only told Henrietta that her cells will help many people in the future. “In fact, in the future HeLa cells were contribute into polio vaccine; develop drugs for treating herpes, leukemia, influenza, hemophilia, and Parkinson’s disease” (Skloot 22). Hela cells were also used in cancer treatment and were the first cells that were shot into space.

The disease poliomyelitis is more commonly known by its alternative name “polio.” The history of this disease dates back into prehistory, but major polio epidemics were not known before the twentieth century. The first clinical description of this disease was provided by a British physician named Michael Underwood, in which he described the disease as debility of the lower extremities. In the 1880s major epidemics started to occur in Europe, then made its way soon after into the United States. The first report of multiple cases was recorded in 1843 and described an outbreak that happened in Louisiana in 1841. The next large outbreak was in Boston in 1893 where there were 26 cases of poliomyelitis. The following year was the first recognized epidemic in the United States which occurred in Vermont with 132 total cases, including 18 deaths. By 1907 there were approximately 2,500 cases of polio reported in New York City alone. By 1910, epidemics of polio were regular events throughout the developed world, mostly in cities during the warmer months. In 1916 there were over 27,000 cases including more than 6,000 deaths due to polio in the United States, with more than 2,000 deaths occurring in New York City alone. Poliomyelitis hit its peak in the 1940s and 1950s; it paralyzed or killed more than half a million people per year.

Eradication of disease through the simple administration of a shot seems like the perfect solution to a complicated problem. Right? The presence of the polio virus had been a growing cause of hysteria throughout the course of history. With cases documented back into the 1700’s, the thought of polio, a virus that causes extensive paralysis, wrecked havoc on the minds of every mother and father in the world. This fear grew as the spread of the virus continued to span the globe. Parents everywhere from New York City to the African Congo were constantly concerned that their children would be the next to fall ill. During the height of the Polio scare of the early 20th century, scientists knowledge of the poliovirus expanded and they were able to