The Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks

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Introduction
Henrietta Lacks or better known as “HeLa” was a mother, wife, and sister. On August 1, 1920, in Roanoke, Virginia, Henrietta was born. She was merely form a family of poor farmers. She changed the entire medical field, but was unfortunately betrayed by her doctors since they took her cells without consent. Doctors revolutionized medicine using her powerful HeLa cells, too bad nobody knew it. Prologue and Deborah’s Voice The author of “The Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks”, Rebecca Skloot, created a sense of curiosity within her audience by starting off the book including descriptions of Henrietta. She states that not many people know about all that she has done for the human race medically and I believe this intrigues readers …show more content…

They examined her at Johns Hopkins since she was African American and that was her best shot at good patient treatment even though it had a history of providing the exact opposite. They diagnose her as best they could and give her information that would require her to have the same level of education as some of the doctors there which was almost impossible. As a matter of fact, it was impossible because the Jim Crow Era, which was in her lifetime, didn’t allow African Americans equality, not excluding medical care. She most likely did not understand what was happening to her, how severe it had become, nor how they would treat it. I believe she simply couldn’t make logical decisions in this environment because her six years of education did not prepare her for this level of comprehension that she needed. The doctors also might’ve purposefully kept her records from her. She basically ignored the issue for as long as she possibly could to avoid having to get treatment and then she didn’t know what to make of what they were telling her ,so she carried on with it as if nothing were happening. Before all of this occurred, Skloot spoke of Henrietta’s childhood years. Her family was very large as she was one of ten children. Back in the 1920s , it wasn’t rare to see families this size. I believe her family most likely didn’t have enough money and struggled with keeping everyone disciplined. As she grew, Henrietta began getting close to her cousin, Day, and they had children together. This is where it was extremely different back then because this would be considered incest now ,but it wasn’t abnormal especially since nobody really kept track. Henrietta lived with Day and her children ,but she wouldn’t see them as much when she would attend Hopkins for treatment. I think she was most likely afraid of telling them all this information because it would

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