The Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks By Rebecca Skloot

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.

Rebecca Skloot, author of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, tells the story of the evolution of HeLa cells through life, death, and immorality. She introduces the Lacks family: Henrietta, Day, Deborah, Lawrence, Gladys, Elsie, Sonny, and other intermediate relatives involved. Over the decades, death consumed several family members but it never kept them from remembering… the thief of Henrietta’s cells.

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot is a book written about a woman who acquired a diagnosis of cervical cancer. In 1951, Henrietta sought out help from The Johns Hopkins hospital and Dr. George Gey. Gey is over the tissue research. Gey’s hopes were to create an immortal line of human cells for scientific experimentation. Gey took a sample of Henrietta's tissue to be cultured without her knowledge.

Smithsonian, 2010. Cracking the Code of the Human Genome: Henrietta Lacks’ ‘Immortal Cells’. (Extracts from ‘The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks’ (Rebecca Skloot, 2010)) http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/henrietta-lacks-immortal-cells-6421299/ [Accessed 26th June 2017].

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

The author Rebecca Skloot describes an old photograph of a beautiful, brave looking young woman - the woman is Henrietta Lacks, the main character of the book. A few months before she lost her battle to cervical cancer, a doctor extracted some of her cancer cells. Her cells went on to survive and multiply indefinitely in the laboratory environment, which were the first human cells to do such a thing. Her cells have led to much medical advancement. Skloot seeks to engage the reader's sympathy for Henrietta Lacks and her family by describing her experiences with racism, ignorance, and injustice prior to and after her death from cancer. The author constantly explores the issue of patient rights to the readers by analyzing these injustices.

“Henrietta just nodded and said, ‘Lord, it just feels like that blackness be spreadin all inside of me,’” remarked Rebecca Skloot, author of the nonfiction novel The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. This quote not only personifies the pain of cancer patient Henrietta Lacks, but it stands as a metaphor for the African-American race during the mid-twentieth century. Through the story of the Lacks family, readers are able to thoroughly understand the culture, medicinal practices, and attitudes of the African Americans and scientists of the time.

In a world with over billions of people, it’s astounding to think that biologically, we are all so different, yet so alike. As generations pass, our biological design evolves and new health risks arise, which require new cures to be discovered. Researchers for decades have turned to human tissue samples for some insight and profit on the biological vulnerabilities that have surfaced through out human history. The author of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Rebecca Skloot raises the subject of human tissue samples through her piece on the first immortal cells discovered and the advances it caused in the field of medical science. Unfortunately, the human body is designed in a way where while our biological make up is similar yet sometimes incompatible with one another’s. Catherine Walby, the author of “Biomedicine, Tissue Transfer and Intercorporeality”, discusses the unique identity each individuals tissues hold and the biological limitations not only physically, but psychologically when it comes to organ transplants or other bodily exchanges. Her article expresses the individuality in each individuals tissues and how it’s more than just a biological exchange. To preserve the personhood of human tissues, consent laws then come in to play. David Wendler’s article, “Consent for Research With Biological Samples: One-Time General Consent Versus a Gift Model”, explores the legality of different forms of consent

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks Rebecca Skoots book “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks” depicts the human and background story of the immortal cell line HeLa and where exactly they came from, this books provides the untold story of the cell line that has allowed science to improve not just in America but in many more places. The HeLa cell is an immortal cell line used in scientific research; it gets its name from Henrietta Lacks. From this cell line science has accomplished numerous medicines and gained knowledge but what has Henrietta lacks or her family gained from this?

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 Henrietta Lacks Foundation is a non-profit organization founded by Rebecca Skloot, author of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, who is donating a portion of her book’s proceeds to the Foundation. Henrietta was a poor black farmer whose cancer cells had damaging consequences for her family who today can’t afford access to the health care advances their mother’s cells helped make possible. The Foundation strives to provide financial assistance to needy individuals who have made important contributions to scientific research without personally benefiting from those contributions, particularly those used in research without their knowledge or consent. The Foundation gives those who

Rebecca Skloot begins The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks with a quote from Elie Wiesel from The Nazi Doctors and the Nuremberg Code by stating, “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, and with some measure of triumph” (Skloot n.p.). Clearly, the author chose this quote to portray that every human being should be seen as valuable and not objectified in the eyes of others. However, in 1951, a time when the Jim Crow Laws enforced racial segregation in the South, this mindset excluded all colored patients, including a woman named Henrietta Lacks. The Immortal

The theme I have selected for my book is “...Despite one’s best effort, humanity will not always return the favor. Life is not a balanced scale; life is a dance of give and take that can leave one person on top of the world and another buried six feet under.” This theme can be linked to my poster’s slogan: “It is possible to be chained by the stories we have yet to tell,” because the chains that bound the Lacks family were the cause of the unjustness they were subjected to. The image I selected represents my slogan and the characters in The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks because they felt locked up, left to rot as they wondered what had happened to their mother. The chains are the lies, the secrets, and the manipulations that the Lacks family

As documented in the book “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks” written by Rebecca Skloot, Henrietta lived her childhood in the segregated rural south. There was no real inspiration for her to attend school, much less develop a strong interest in getting a formal education. Segregation contributed to a cycle of oppression and poverty that affected Henrietta’s knowledge, and quality of life. The unfair early education laws, impaired all black children’s potential to learn, and negatively affected their confidence. America has laws that intend on producing, equal education for all children regardless of economic circumstances, race, religion, or academic ability level. On the other hand, a studied by the Civil Rights Project at Harvard University, find that “public school, especially in the south, is becoming re-segregated at a surprising level.”(Hancock Jones) Today there is evidence that suggest public education still needs equal protection reform in order to give all children a high quality education.

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.