Imagine being afraid of going to see the doctor, thinking that they will try to harm you in some way. Imagine experiencing pain beyond belief and not knowing that if the doctors had just treated you earlier you might not have had to go through the hurt you’re going through. Finally imagine that this was your situation as a young African American female growing up in the south during the Jim Crow era, which meant that you were segregated from the white people and mistreated by them as well. This is the story of the unsung hero: Henrietta Lacks. She contributed many of the scientific discoveries today, especially towards the medical field. However, these benefits can at the cost of her life. Henrietta’s unbeknown sacrifice to the betterment of …show more content…
When she was just four years old, her mother had died, causing her father to take all the children to a small town Clover, Virginia, to divide the children amongst the many relatives that had lived there. Henrietta went to her grandfather to a small four-room cabin, which was formerly a slave house, and was dubbed the “home-house” by the family. Once there she helped pick the sticky tobacco in the fields that surrounded the house with her cousins after she had finished tending to the animals in at the farm her grandfather owned. At night she and her cousins would make a bonfire and tell stories and have fun like all kids do when they are young. There was one cousin in particular with whom she had grown a special connection with David Lacks, her grandfather’s other grandchild. Henrietta and Day (the family called David this because of their southern drawl) played and worked in the fields together, they also shared a bed with one another in the …show more content…
Therefore she was not allowed to go back home and had to take more Radiation treatments. After these, the areas in which they treated her became black. A scientist at the time, George Gey was trying to create the first ever human cell that could survive outside of the body. He had been asking for samples of patient’s tumors at Hopkins to do this. It is important to note that these samples were taken without the patient’s permission. So far all the samples had not survived, then he got Henrietta’s sample. He had expected her sample to die too, and the sample of her Cervix that was not infected with tumors did, but the sample of her tumor had survived. He had named the samples after the first two and last two letters of the patient from which a sample came, thus HeLa was created. Not long after that Henrietta had died from her cancer, leaving a legacy of herself that has not died even to this
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.
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by: Rebecca Skloot has a lot of themes, but one that is most relevant in my opinion is the racial politics of medicine. Throughout the chapters, there were examples of how Henrietta, being African American, prevented her from receiving the same treatment as the white woman sitting right next to her in the waiting room. The story begins with Henrietta going to Johns Hopkins Hospital and asking a physician to check a “knot on her womb.” Skloot describes that Henrietta had been having pain around that area for about a year, and talked about it with her family, but did not do anything until the pains got intolerable. The doctor near her house had checked if she had syphilis, but it came back negative, and he recommended her to go to John Hopkins, a known university hospital that was the only hospital in the area that would treat African American patients during the era of Jim Crow. It was a long commute, but they had no choice. Patient records detail some of her prior history and provide readers with background knowledge: Henrietta was one of ten siblings, having six or seven years of schooling, five children of her own, and a past of declining medical treatments. The odd thing was that she did not follow up on upcoming clinic visits. The tests discovered a purple lump on the cervix about the size of a nickel. Dr. Howard Jones took a sample around the tissue and sent it to the laboratory.
In order to fully understand the significance of the life of Henrietta Lacks, one must first understand the nature of the historical moment in which she lived, and died. Henrietta Lacks was a poor, African American woman born in 1920; Henrietta lived in Clover, Virginia, on a tobacco farm maintained by many generations of relatives. This historical moment can best be understood when evaluated using a structural analysis; a structural analysis is an examination of multiple components which form an organization; structural analyses often focus on the goals and purpose of the organization in question. Henrietta and her family were greatly affected by structural violence, a type of systematic violence exerted via legislation and discrimination. Often following systematic violence is a separate type of violence, known as symbolic violence; this occurs when structural violence is viewed as normal based on media representation or popular
Henrietta Lacks, birthed Loretta Pleasant, was born on August 1, 1920 to poor African- American parents. Although she was native of Roanoke, Virginia, Henrietta spent the majority of her childhood in Clover, Virginia on the tobacco field with her grandfather and a host of cousins. As a result of the excessive “quality” time with her cousins Henrietta became attached to one in particular, David “Day” Lacks. He later fathered her first child. At the age of fourteen Henrietta conceived her first child, Lawrence Lacks. Unlike White mothers who birthed their children in hospitals; Henrietta birthed her child in her grandfather’s home-house, a four room cabin previously used as slave quarters. While White patients were certain to receive the upmost patient ca...
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...
Imagine that you were Douglas Mawson, along with two other explorers exploring unknown Antarctica, when everything goes wrong. Douglas Mawson suffered more adversity than Henrietta Lacks and Phineas Gage. Henrietta Lacks is about a woman who died from cervical cancer and her cells were extracted; later to find that her cells were immortal. Phineas Gage was a normal man when an extraordinary thing happened—he had a iron rod go through his skull. Phineas gage didn’t go through as much hardship, but he did go through more than Lacks. Half way through Mawson’s journey, both of his partners died, and it was just him, all alone in Antarctica. So, as anyone could see, Mawson experiences the most adversity among the three figures for many reasons.
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.
Most people live in capitalist societies where money matters a lot. Essentially, ownership is also of significance since it decides to whom the money goes. In present days, human tissues matter in the scientific field. Rebecca Skloot, author of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, shows how Henrietta Lacks’s cells have been used well, and at the same time, how they have been a hot potato in science because of the problem of the ownership. This engages readers to try to answer the question, “Should legal ownership have to be given to people?” For that answer, yes. People should be given the rights to ownership over their tissues for patients to decide if they are willing to donate their tissues or not. Reasons will be explained as follows.
Imagine having a part of your body taken from you without your permission, and then having those cells that are a part of your body grow and are being processed in labs around the world and then ultimately being used for the highest of research. That is what happens to Henrietta Lacks. In the book, The Immoral Life of Henrietta Lacks, we see Henrietta Lacks and her families story unravel, the numerous hardships that they faced, and the shocking revelation that their relative cells were being used for research without her consent and theirs.
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.
The movie does not do Henrietta Lacks justice, and neither has almost anyone who has came in contact with her cells. Henrietta Lacks and the whole Lacks family suffered so much and continue to suffer today, especially financially. A struggle that could have been resolved by many culprits mentioned in the book. Abundant amounts of people have different thoughts on whether or not the family's opinions or Henrietta's consent mattered, but there is no doubt that some type of justice should have been served.
This section is used to demonstrate to the reader the enormous effects of her death to both her family and science. Immediately following Henrietta's death, Dr. Gey is anxious to take as many samples from her body as possible. However, he must first obtain permission from her husband for an autopsy. Henrietta's husband, Day, is tricked into giving permission. He is told the autopsy will provide test results that may help his children in the future. During the autopsy, Gey's assistant Mary Kubicek takes notice to Henrietta's painted toenails and realizes that HeLa cells belong to an actual person. She says, "they came from a live woman" (Skloot 91). A few days after the autopsy, Henrietta's body is sent from Baltimore to Clover. Henrietta is buried a few days later in an unmarked grave alongside her mother in Lacks Town. Her death is swift and little mourning is conducted by the family. By placing this section second, the reader gains insight into Henrietta's family. Her children are treated poorly and her husband is absent most of the time following her death. This section is important in understanding and gaining insight into the people closest to
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
The book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot, was a nonfiction story about the life of Henrietta Lacks, who died of cervical cancer in 1951. Henrietta did not know that her doctor took a sample of her cancer cells a few months before she died. “Henrietta cells that called HeLa were the first immortal human cells ever grown in a laboratory” (Skloot 22). In fact, the cells from her cervix are the most important advances in medical research. Rebecca was interested to write this story because she was anxious with the story of HeLa cells. When she was in biology class, her professor named Donald Defler gave a lecture about cells. Defler tells the story about Henrietta Lacks and HeLa cells. However, the professor ended his lecture when he said that Henrietta Lacks was a black woman. In this book, Rebecca wants to tell the truth about the story of Henrietta Lacks during her medical process and the rights for Henrietta’s family after she died.