She died in 1951, and yet she is still alive. Literally, Henrietta Lacks has been unwittingly immortalized through her cells (HeLa) which have multiplied in laboratories throughout the world. The 2010 bestseller The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks also breathed life to the controversy surrounding her cells: should the Lacks family receive monetary compensation for HeLa’s immense contribution to science and medicine? That answer is a resolute no. On the concept of feasibility, disputes regarding practicality make reparation impossible. The fundamental definition of “family” yields the question of deciding which members of the Lacks family should be eligible for remuneration. Would compensation conclude with Lacks’s immediate kin or expand to extended family? Her children Lawrence Lacks, Sonny Lacks, and Zakariyya Bari Abdul Rahman would undoubtedly receive restitution, but the passing of daughters Elsie Lacks and Deborah Lacks complicate the case for direct descendants. Hence, no just method exists to determine which relatives would qualify for restitutions. Additionally another hindrance to compensation arises: who should be held accountable for repaying the Lacks family? The default culprit Johns Hopkins merely freely distributed HeLa to other laboratories, never garnering any profit from the cells. Hundred of research institutions across the globe have received samples of HeLa; thus, tracking down each individual laboratory would be next to impossible. Even if that feat was feasible, what monetary value should be compensated? No single individual or organization has the authority to dictate an appropriate amount that can simultaneously satisfy both family and compensator as well as solve the ethical
All I can say is amazing information of your glorious and late Henrietta Lacks. This incedible women bettered our society in ways no common human could understand at the time because of how complex this matter was and still very much indeed is. I know there is much contraversy with the matter of how scientists achived immortal cells from your late relative, and I do strongly agree with the fact that it was wrong for these researches to take advantage of this incredible women, but I know it is not for me to say nonethless it must be said that even though it was wrong to take Lacks’ cells when she was dying sometimes one must suffer to bring joy to the entire world.
Henrietta’s name is associated with HeLa cells after a doctor took her cells without her knowing (the name derives from the first two letters of her first and last names). It is told that George Gey, a cancer researcher at Hopkins was longing to study cancer cells however, the method failed because the cells were studied outside of the body and died. But Henrietta’s cells did not die. In fact they continued to replicate making what we now know as the HeLa cell. The sample of Henrietta’s malignant tumor was offered to researchers who saw the cells continue to multiply in culture, and they still continue to grow up to this day. Scientists remain stumped why the HeLa cells survived whereas others didn't. It has been proposed that the immortality of her cells is due to the enzyme telomerase (Reveron, 2011). Telomerase pre...
An abstraction can be defined as something that only exists as an idea. People are considered abstractions when they are dehumanized, forgotten about, or segregated and discriminated against. The scientific community and the media treated Henrietta Lacks and her family as abstractions in several ways including; forgetting the person behind HeLa cells, giving sub-par health care compared to Caucasians, and not giving reparations to the Lacks family. On the other hand, Rebecca Skloot offers a different perspective that is shown throughout the book. Rebecca Skloot’s book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks describes the trials and tribulations the Lacks family has gone through because of HeLa cells and shows how seeing a person as an abstraction is a dangerous thing.
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks tells the story of Henrietta Lacks. In the early 1951 Henrietta discovered a hard lump on the left of the entrance of her cervix, after having unexpected vaginal bleeding. She visited the Johns Hopkins hospital in East Baltimore, which was the only hospital in their area where black patients were treated. The gynecologist, Howard Jones, indeed discovers a tumor on her cervix, which he takes a biopsy off to sent it to the lab for diagnosis. In February 1951 Henrietta was called by Dr. Jones to tell about the biopsy results: “Epidermoid carcinoma of the cervix, Stage I”, in other words, she was diagnosed with cervical cancer. Before her first radium treatment, surgeon dr. Wharton removed a sample of her cervix tumor and a sample of her healthy cervix tissue and gave this tissue to dr. George Gey, who had been trying to grow cells in his lab for years. In the meantime that Henrietta was recovering from her first treatment with radium, her cells were growing in George Gey’s lab. This all happened without the permission and the informing of Henrietta Lacks. The cells started growing in a unbelievable fast way, they doubled every 24 hours, Henrietta’s cells didn’t seem to stop growing. Henrietta’s cancer cell grew twenty times as fast as her normal healthy cells, which eventually also died a couple of days after they started growing. The first immortal human cells were grown, which was a big breakthrough in science. The HeLa cells were spread throughout the scientific world. They were used for major breakthroughs in science, for example the developing of the polio vaccine. The HeLa-cells caused a revolution in the scientific world, while Henrietta Lacks, who died Octob...
The Immortal life of Henrietta Lacks is a book about the women behind the scientific revolution of using actual cancer cells to perform cancer research. Henrietta Lacks was an African American woman who was barely educated and worked as a tobacco farmer. At the age of thirty she was diagnosed with cervical cancer. In Lacks’ time being uneducated, African American, and a woman was not a great mix. They were often undermined and taken advantage of. When Lacks started to become very ill she went to the nearest hospital that would accept black patients. There the doctor, George Gey, misdiagnosed her illness and took a tissue sample without her consent. After suffering through her illness and trying to keep up with her five children Henrietta died
To have something stolen from you is devastating and can change your life. But what if what was taken from you will save billions of human lives? In the book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot, we see a woman named Henrietta had a biopsy of a cancerous tumor, and the cells from the tumor were able to live and grow outside of her body; and even better, the cells go on to find the cure for diseases such as polio. The catch is this: she signed a document giving her hospital permission to perform any medical procedure they find necessary to help her treatment, but she never gave specific permission for the cells in that biopsy to be tested and cultured. Now the big debate is over whether or not it was legal for her doctors
HeLa cells were one of the greatest medical inventions that came about for the scientific field and yet the woman behind this medical feat is not fully remembered and honored. Her cells and tissue were taken away from her without consent and more than that, she was exploited for being black and not questioning what the doctor was doing. Her family suffered through countless years of agonizing pain in which they were misinformed about where and what her cells were being used for. Yes, HeLa cells changed the way we view medicine today, but only at the cost of creating one of the greatest controversies of owning ones body.
The Belmont Report identifies three core principles that are to be respected when using human subjects for research. The three ethical principles are: respect for persons, beneficence and justice. In the case of Henrietta Lacks each of these fundamental components are violated. The consent that Henrietta provided was not sufficient for the procedures that were conducted.
What is privacy? Well, it’s the state or condition of being free from being observed or disturbed by other people. In terms of information, it is the right to have some control over how one’s own personal information is collected and used. This is a right that has been inherently protected by the U.S Constitution, agreed upon by the Supreme Court, and yet, issues around this very topic arise every day. In The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, the author Rebecca Skloot, addresses this issue in her story of the women behind the infamous HeLa cells. Her story shows that although privacy is a right that is inherently protected by the law, situations of injustice can still occur. Examples of this in the book include when Henrietta’s cells were given to Dr. Gey without any consent from Day, the situation in which Mr. Golde’s spleen was sold without his permission, as well as when the Lacks family were recontacted and mislead about the reasons they were tested years after Henrietta’s death.
Such companies include GlaxoSmithKline; that had made five-hundred-thirty-five million dollars in revenue with the Pediarix vaccine that prevents polio facts according to Fierce Pharma website. Polio being invented in 1952 by Jonas Salk using the Hela cells, one year after George Gey discovered the importance of the Hela Cells. Other company that benefited from Hela cells were Hela Factory, a literal factory founded and run by William Scherer. More in the Hela Factory can be found in chapter 13, from the book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lack: the text that brought the story of Henrietta Lacks to light. Either way, the Hela cell created wealth for companies and individuals like Albert Sabin and William Scherer. Wealth that was being clutched away from the Lacks family like Deborah Lacks: daughter of Henrietta. Aside from all that, it is clear that Hela cells played an important role in creating medications that boosted biomedical companies/enterprises revenue. Now in respect to the supreme court ruling that that any tissue or cells discarded in a hospital are no longer property of the human. Let’s remember those cells were taken without Henrietta Lack knowing. With this in mind, it is only fair to give Henrietta’s family a share of the pie due to her
While doctors and scientists were making millions of dollars through HeLa research, Henrietta’s family was living in poverty. Lawrence Lacks, Henrietta’s firstborn child, says, “Hopkins say they gave them cells away, but they made millions! It’s not fair! She’s the most important person in the world and her family living in poverty. If our mother so important to science, why can’t we get health insurance?” (pg.168). Someone who disagrees with this standpoint may argue that scientists had been trying for years to develop the perfect culture medium and had a much more hands on experience with the cells (pg.35), therefore, they should be receiving the earnings from any outcomes the HeLa cells may produce. While the scientists were in fact the brains behind the scientific advances, the family should be acknowledged on behalf of Henrietta Lacks. These successes in science would not have been possible without the origin of the cells: Henrietta Lacks. For some of the family, the primary focus was not even the profit. “Since they gone ahead and taken her cells and they been so important for science, Deborah thought, least they can do is give her credit for it.” (pg. 197). Here, Deborah Lacks, Henrietta’s fourth born child, makes it clear that her primary concern is getting her mother the recognition that she deserves for her
Henrietta lacks name was purposely mis-published numerous times -as Helen Lane-, which further took away the chances of her family being financially compensated for the usage of their mothers cells. It is in the strongest belief of the family that scientist and media purposely published the wrong name to hide information about Henrietta from her family. The deceit constantly thrown at Henrietta's family by the scientist community and how the media responded proved that the media also viewed Henrietta as a concept and not as a living breathing human being because they too did not care to know or tell Henrietta's true story.
Rebecca Skloot’s novel, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, depicts the violation of medical ethics from the patient and researcher perspectives specifically when race, poverty, and lack of medical education are factors. The novel takes place in the southern United States in 1951. Henrietta Lacks is born in a poor rural town, Clover, but eventually moves to urban Turner Station. She was diagnosed and treated for cervical cancer at Johns Hopkins hospital where cells was unknowingly taken from her and used for scientific research. Rebecca Skloot describes this when she writes, “But first—though no one had told Henrietta that TeLinde was collecting sample or asked she wanted to be a donor—Wharton picked up a sharp knife and shaved two dime-sized pieces of tissue from Henrietta's cervix: one from her tumor, and one from the healthy cervical tissue nearby. Then he placed the samples in a glass dish” (33). The simple act of taking cells, which the physicians did not even think twice about, caused decades
...ave. They have been through a lot by people asking over and over about the HeLa cells. I think the least the doctors could do is tell them the actual truth about how they used those cells and stop making them guess or always wonder. I think they should have told them when they come to get the blood what they were actually using it for. They may not have understood, but the least they could do is tell them. They could have told them they wasn’t taking their blood to see if they had cancer they should have told them they were taking it for the HeLa cells. I think it was a good thing when I found out that Gey was actually doing research on the cells and not actually trying to get money. I thought this whole time he was probably getting money from it. I think when he was doing his research he was actually trying to help people, not put the Lack’s family through so much.
..., the name of Henrietta Lacks needs to be introduced to the world since she is the woman who generated HeLa cells, because the name of the person who generated HeLa cells is still unknown. By doing this, her family will be honored and respected by others.