Henrietta Lacks Failure

Rebbecca Sloot's intrest in Henrietta Lacks life began when she was sixteen and Donald Defler, her biology teacher at the time gave a speech about human cells and how one mistake or mutation in reproduction of the cells could completely destroy the process. Therefore promote the onslaught of maligant cell growth in the body also known as cancer. Rebecca was very fasinated by the subject and also about Henrietta Lack's story, her disease and also how her stolen cells allowed for such great medical advancements. Henrietta Lacks cells were the first cells to be cultured and reproduced in a laboratory enviorment. In the 1950s scientist had attempted this for decades but only been met with failure, growing cells outside the body was seemingly impossible.

Her mother died when Henrietta was four during childbirth. Her father soon moved the family to Clover,Virginia and Henietta lived with her grandfather. Henrietta’s cousin, Day Lacks grew up with her. They soon fell in love and married in 1941 and had two childeren. Henrietta was fourteen and eighteen at the time when she had each of her childeren. She would soon after being to expericence a pain for a year which she described as a “knot on her womb”. John Hopkins University hospital where Henrietta went to be examined soon discovered her cervix was fostering a purple lump of malignant cancerous cells. Her doctor ,Dr. Howard Jones took a sample of the cells to send in for testing. No sign of anything out of the norm was very noted after childbirth or even months prior to Henrietta's synomptms emerging. Dr. Richard TeLinde and Dr. George Gey had both been working in an attenpt to grow cancerous cells and cervical tissues in a lab enviorment outside the human body but had been met with failure. Despite the violation of patients rights however the surgeon that Henrietta worked with back at Johns Hopkins for treatment had taken a sample of both cancerous and normal cervical tissue before putting tubes of radium into her cervix as treatment. The samples were kept secret from Henrietta and she never knew her cells would be used in experiments. Henrietta’s cancerous cells were nicknamed HeLa and as they grew so did

The cancer treatments however were taking a toll on her body the flesh on her her torso area becoming black . Also the radium tubes soon made her infertile and inable to have childeren. HeLa was met with great speculation due to the many false reports about similar accomplishments. Henritta was deemed cancer free despite her increasing pain. Doctor's word was almost always taken over the patients complaints. Henrietta, especially being a black woman of the times would not be taken seriously over a doctors claims. However a huge tumor in Henrietta’s abdomen had begun to spread rapidly which required her to be back in the hopistal and go throught harsh intensive radiation in a frantic attempt to retard the growth of the cells. In September of 1951, Henriettas body was overtaken by cancer bringing immense pain. The doctors attempted blood transfusions, but soon all they could do was provide her with pain reilf and in October she died. Doctors were soon granted permission to do an autopsy on Henrietta after Dr. Gey it could be useful genetic infromation for his children in the future. This was the first time Mary Kubicek, Gey’s assistant realized HeLa had come from