example, Skloot states, “As Cliff and Fred lowered Henrietta’s coffin into her grave and began covering her with handfuls of dirt, the sky turned black as strap molasses. The rain fell thick and fast. Then came long rumbling thunder…” and Henrietta’s cousin Peter, stated, “We shoulda knew she was trying to tell us something with that storm” (92). Skloot, includes this casual argument because it illustrates how Henrietta’s family believes Henrietta created the storm. Skloot also uses deductive reasoning, which goes from general to specific. For example, she states, “First, HeLa didn’t grow from one of Henrietta’s cells. It grew from a sliver of her tumor, which was a cluster of cells. Second, cells often behave differently, even if they’re all from the same sample, which means some grow faster than others” (99). Skloot uses deductive reasoning to explain how HeLa began and uses specific evidence. Skloot uses both types of reasoning in her book to create a stronger argument. Even though Anne Fadiman …show more content…
Rebecca Skloot writes: At that point, more than 15,000 women were dying each year from cervical cancer. The Pap smear had the potential to decrease that death rate by 70 percent or more, but there were two things standing in its way: first, many women- like Henrietta-simply didn’t get the test; and, second, even when they did, few doctors knew how to interpret the results accurately, because they didn’t know what the various stages of cervical cancer looked like under a microscope. (29) This statistical statement is meant to distract the reader from the real argument, which is how the doctors were taking cervical cancer cells from their patients without their consent. This fallacy hurts Skloot’s credibility because as a reader it seems like she is ignoring one of her main points in her argument, which is the unethical removal of their patient’s cells that doctors were
Henrietta’s cells were being inaugurated with space travel, infused into rat cells, and even being used to make infertile hens fertile again. However, these are only a few of the many accomplishments that Henrietta’s immortal cells made possible: “The National Cancer Institute was using various cells, including HeLa, to screen more than thirty thousand chemicals and plant extracts, which would yield several of today’s most widely used and effective chemotherapy drugs, including Vincristine and Taxol,”(pg.139). This example of logos from the text again shows just how important these Henrietta’s cells were to the future developments in
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.
The treatment of African Americans in The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks demonstrates the lack of ethics in the United States health care system during the 1950s and 1960s. Under the impression that medical doctors at Johns Hopkins Hospital were solely injecting radium treatment for cervical cancer, Henrietta Lacks laid on the surgical bed. During this procedure Dr. Lawrence Wharton Jr. shaved two pieces of tissue from her vagina, one from a healthy cervical tissue and one from the cancerous tumor, without Henrietta’s prior knowledge. After recovering from her surgery Henrietta exited the door marked, “Blacks Only,” the door that signified the separation between White and African-American patients. Had Henrietta been White, would the same outcomes have occurred? How badly did a country that proclaimed to be “One Nation under God” divide this very land into two separate nations? The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks truly exhibits the racial disparity in the health care system.
Although she was taken from the world too soon, Henrietta Lacks was a warm hearted woman, and though unbeknownst to her, she would pave the way for the medical field and greatly expand our understanding of one of the nation’s greatest killers; cancer. In 1951 people did not talk about cancer lightly; cancer was a very touchy subject, especially for those who knew they couldn’t receive treatment once they had been diagnosed. When Lacks went to the hospital because of a “knot on her womb” she never thought that it would grow into a full fledge tumor that would end up taking her life. Henrietta lived a simple yet happy life which consisted of working on the farm, loving her husband, and raising children, and she was not going to ruin the lifestyle she knew so well by telling her family that she had cancer; it was just unheard of.
...l over the world, they came from a live woman.’” (Skloot 91). Henrietta did not receive the thanks she deserved from all the doctors or scientists because they just thought of HeLa cells, as nothing but cells. They did not even blink an eye at the thought of the cells coming from a real person. All in all, through disconcern from society, Skloot shows that injustice haunts many people.
In recounting Henrietta Lacks’ history, Rebecca Skloot in The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, does not shy away from moral complexities such as informed consent and ethics. She uses narratives from Henrietta’s life to show how ethical wrongdoings of the hospital affected not only Henrietta’s existence, but her family’s. Text on the front and inside cover of Skloot’s book conveys this exact message, “Doctors took her cells without asking… Henrietta’s family did not learn of her ‘immortality’ until more than 20 years after her death, when scientists investigating HeLa began using her husband and children in research without informed consent. ” Throughout her book, Skloot skillfully analyses a real story of medical ethics by pointing out ironic situations and conveying her argument by an equal amount of
The story about Henrietta Lacks is the evidence that the ethics of medical processes need to be improved. For a long time, many patients have been victims of malpractice. Sometimes, the doctors still can do anything without the agreement from patients. Any medical institution needs to hold the integrity on any consent form that is signed by a patient. To summarize, the story of Henrietta Lacks could be the way to improve the standardization and equality of medical institutions in the future.
This quote centers Henrietta Lacks’ story around the same questions that have driven the Doctoring course: What does it mean to care for others? And how do we ensure that we care for our patients first as people, rather than as a disease? In many ways, Henrietta Lacks’ story is a textbook case in how not to be a good physician. In examining and learning from her story through the lens of Doctoring, we can inform our own practice and
First, Skloot demonstrates ethos in her novel to build credibility. Throughout the beginning of the text, Skloot builds a profile of herself in which she details her background and her interest for the HeLa cells; she learned about HeLa in “a college lecture hall at sixteen [where] words like mitosis and kinase inhibitors [were] flying around” (p.2). She remembers that she was in class
The distrust between the African American community and white medicine has been a factor far before Henrietta, but her story definitely contributed to the long history. Had Henrietta been white, I am almost sure that she would be a national hero and historical figure. Through this course was my first time even coming across this story, but I want more to know about it. If the cure for cancer is ever found it would only be fair to give Henrietta over half the credit. Nevertheless, we are still making strides towards racial equality as it goes hand in hand with informed consent. We have to educate more African Americans on what informed consent is so that there are no more cases like Henrietta. You have the right to know what is being done or not being done to your body, and you should have the option to not only decide your fate, but understand the pros and cons of each
“HeLa cells were one of the most important things that happened to medicine in the last hundred years.” This quote portrays the overall importance of HeLa cells to the science community, and reveals just how significant the exploitation of Henrietta was. Henrietta Lacks was a middle-aged, African American woman who developed cervical cancer like many others in the 1950’s. However, cell samples were taken from here without consent, and these cells were unlike any cell ever seen before. Tragically, Henrietta died shortly after and her family knew nothing of these cells that were found to be “immortal,” until one day, when their lives would never be the same. Tying into this unethical situation, Rebecca Skloot illustrates in the novel The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks the importance of bioethics and morality for the protection and privacy of an individual. Rebecca really drives home this theme through the chronological development
...arch and practices introduced in the book. She brings a sense of clarity for the readers to understand the back-to-back diverse situations she implements. Skloot describes what the family was put through in both not knowing and finding out about Henrietta’s cells, as well as describing the reactions the family had to the situation. She gains credibility by telling about the family’s history involving the different places she visited such as Clover, Virginia where Henrietta was raised, the home-house in which she grew up in, as well as the unmarked grave in which her body lies beneath.
Park, Alice. "Why HPV Is Still Not a Straight Shot." Time 31 Aug. 2009: 49-49. Print.
The Smear Campaign launched on 10/03/2014 by NHS Greater Glasgow is aimed at women aged 20 – 35 in this region. The campaign aims to diminish the barriers which are stopping women from attending their routine cervical screenings. It is backed by 2 famous Scottish radio DJ’s, Radio Clyde’s Knoxy and Suzie McGuire, and they are trying to promote the benefits of attending these screenings to banish the myths that they are painful and embarrassing. According to Emilia Crighton, Consultant in Public Health Medicine, “New research shows that the main barriers stopping women from attending cervical screening (smear test) are fear, embarrassment and pain.” (http://www.nhsggc.org.uk/content/default.asp?page=s1192_3&newsid=17764&back=home). They encourage women to watch their online video which shares the story of a woman who attended her routine cervical screening and was found to have early cancerous cells on her cervix. This smear test helped detect these cells and the 3 videos can be seen online via Youtube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6QEdma5SDw, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Pe-Njiiv38&list=PLmuRxztsS0Nxxx-2_til-mHfG20topFyt, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XfO9bWNJHFA&list=PLmuRxztsS0Nxxx-2_til-mHfG20topFyt. These videos use humour as well as factual information to promote the benefits of attending regular smear tests, which is available for anyone to watch who has an internet connection. This campaign is widely promoted through the use of social media, these videos are displayed on YouTube and this campaign has been advertised on the internet and in various news articles.
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