The Life Of Henrietta Lacks

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

Public health is one of the most important aspects of our population, and our nation relies on it to keep the people of the United States healthy and free of risk. The main goal of public health professionals is to protect communities (either local or national) from threatening diseases to extend our nations lifespan. Also, public health policies and procedures function to ensure prevention and safety from health issues that could arise. In The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, by Rebecca Skloot, many public health issues are developed.

Rebecca Skloot’s bestseller, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, begins with a quote from World War II concentration camp survivor Elie Wiesel, “We must not see any person as an abstraction. Instead, we must see in every person a universe with its own secrets, with its own treasures, with its own source of anguish” (Wiesel qtd. in Skloot n. pag.). This quote serves as a preview of the book and its underlying moral purposes, as Henrietta Lacks and her family are continually treated as objects without rights to their privacy and without regards to their worth or feelings. The dehumanization of the Lacks family by the media and scientific community not only resulted in consequences for the family, but influenced society, as well.

Uncountable major scientific discoveries, such as, the polio vaccine and blood pressure medicines came from the same root: HeLa cells; for several years no one questioned where the cells came from or what its initials stand for, although numerous studies across the world used and bought these cells. Rebecca Skloot, the author of the book “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks,” performed a research investigating the origin of HeLa cells and the woman behind them. Based on her findings, the story imparted injustice, not only against Henrietta, but also her family. Given all benefits HeLa cells brought, anyone could guess the owner of the cells, Henrietta, was well compensated, nevertheless, the unfortunate reality is her cells were stolen.

In 1951, one woman’s misfortune became the ultimate breakthrough and lead to a huge discovery in science. Henrietta Lacks was a lower class African-American woman living in Baltimore, Maryland at the time. She had been suffering from a “knot in her womb” that caused her to experience grave pain. In the 1950’s, a time when hospitals turned away lower class African American patients away, they had access to receive free treatment from the public ward at Johns Hopkins Hospital. Although doctors there agreed to examine these patients, it is questionable how thorough and genuine they were throughout the examination. In 1950, Henrietta gave birth to her youngest daughter Deborah, and by January of 1951 she had a full-blown cancerous tumor in

Sixteen-year-old Rebecca Skloot was sitting in a college biology class when she first heard of Henrietta Lacks and the HeLa cells. In class, Rebecca saw how the HeLa cells were able to reproduce and “they became the first immortal human cells ever grown in a laboratory” (Skloot 4). Henrietta Lack was also a black woman. Rebecca became very interested and wanted to know more, but at the end of class the professor told her that there this very little information on Henrietta. This spurred Rebecca’s interest even more. She began extensive research on this topic to satisfy this interest. We worked through graduate school and finally tried to reach out to the Lacks family for more information. It turns out that there had been some unpleasantness in the family history and it was challenging for them to talk about Henrietta. Once their stories were told, Rebecca put enough puzzle pieces of Henrietta’s life together, and she constructed a book entitled The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.

In 2010, Rebecca Skloot published her book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, a result of her discovery and findings devoted to Henrietta’s life story along with her family members, and revived the real person behind tremendous scientific accomplishments sprung of immortal HeLa cells’ exploitation. The research involving HeLa cells has changed the landscape of medical study, leading to scientific and medical breakthroughs that continues today. HeLa cells were vital for developing the polio vaccine; uncovered secrets of breast cancer and leukemia; helped lead to important advances in vitro fertilization, cloning, genetic hybrids, gene mapping in virology, scientific standards, live cell transport, for profit distribution of cells, space

In the book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, we learn about a woman and her families story. Her name is Henrietta Lacks and she gets mistreated by doctors who use her cells without permission and experiment on them. Both doctors and media have abused the Lacks family and treated them more like objects than people. Dr. TeLinde, who was Dr. Howard Jones’ boss, took care of taking Henrietta’s tissues and cells at Johns Hopkins. During this time, he was one of the top cervical cancer researches. He took Henrietta’s cells and gave them to research, unknowing of what he was really doing. Michael Gold, author of A Conspiracy of Cells, published details from Henrietta's medical records and autopsy report without permission from the Lacks family.

In the novel “The Immortal life of Henrietta Lacks” we explore into the world of HeLa cells and the woman behind these cells that created the medial revolution and multi million-dollar industry. Henrietta Lacks was a poor black tobacco farmer who went to the doctors for a knot she felt in her womb and had her cells taken from her that turned out to be extremely important but what came with the medical revolution was the controversial issue of race and poverty that stricken Henrietta Lacks and her family and how her or her family any received any money from these medical revolution using her cells before and after her death many years

The concept of ethics has existed as long as human beings have fostered conscious thought. Whether it be with respect to civil rights, animal rights, individual health and autonomy, or religion, consideration for others’ welfare is at the core of humanity. That is, until prejudice, mistrust, greed, and ignorance corrupt our morals and cloud our collective judgment. The tragic story of Henrietta Lacks, indicative of deep racial divides across the world and the financial, political, social, and scientific fields that perpetrate racially-based injustice, is a reminder of these corruptions. Rebecca Skloot, author of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, effectively characterized the plight of the Lacks family and the modern implications of

On October 4, 1951 a 31 year old woman named Henrietta Lacks passed away after months of fighting aggressive Cervical cancer. Before her death, Henrietta’s doctors had taken a small sample of the Cervical tumor that had been slowly killing her and developed what would become known as the first “immortal” cell line. Without Henrietta or her family’s knowledge, researchers named the line “HeLa” and before long were distributing the constantly replicating cells across the globe to researchers studying anything from cancer to beauty care treatments. However, Henrietta was more than just some delivery vessel for an important cell line. She was a young, beautiful, and caring mother whose

To discuss all the benefits that cultured cells would be hard to do just in this research paper. Nevertheless, we have discovered more from cultured cells in the last 20 years than we had in 50 years. Benefits that came from these cultured cells stem all the way from vaccines to starting cell lines. More scientific advancements include tons more on our genetics and DNA. We are able now to grow human body parts and help live longer lives too thanks to cultured cells. Nonetheless, cultured cells have given us countless benefits that have affected our history in science and humankind today. But the cells weren’t all benefits for Henrietta and the Lack’s family. Henrietta Lacks and the Lacks family were blown off by doctors for Henrietta’s diagnosis and the information that Lacks family was suppose to be given. To support my response here is a quote from “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks” “ Warning patients about fertility loss before cancer treatment was standard practice at Hopkins, and something Howard Jones says he and TeLinde did with every patient. In fact, a year and a half before Henrietta came to Hopkins for treatment, in a paper about hysterectomy, TeLinde wrote:

The passage that stood out the most to me in The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks was Chapter 32, “All That’s My Mother”. Throughout the book, the Lackses suffered greatly from the stress that came with knowledge of Henrietta’s cells. Upon discovering the role HeLa cells had in science, every time they heard something about the cells in the news, they were frightened of what it meant for Henrietta. There were few people to help them understand this news, much less to help them learn more about HeLa cells.

In literature, “immortality” is when someone's legacy is remembered. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks involves various references to immortality. HeLa left a strong impact in the science community. Henrietta is remembered as the woman behind the cells. Deborah was an important asset in gathering information..

“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.