The book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot is about a poor African American woman, Henrietta Lacks, who died of cervical cancer in the 1950‘s. During her treatment, the doctors at Johns Hopkins Hospital found that her cells were immortal. A sample of her cells were taken from her without her permission and used in research and some experiments. Those cells were named HeLa cells. She was treated for her cancer but died because the doctors waited too long to treat her. In this essay, I want to argue about how the experiments done with Henrietta’s cells were unethical and how doctors only wanted them for their needs. The doctors defend themselves because, unlike now, they didn’t have laws to protect the patients.
The doctors and scientists in Henrietta’s case took the cells for their needs to experiment on people and try to make medical advances. One experiment was done by Chester Southam, a cancer researcher and chief of virology at Sloan-Kettering Institute for Cancer Research(127). In this experiment, he injected volunteering prisoners in the arm and other...
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 book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot is the result of years of research done by Skloot on an African American woman with cervical cancer named Henrietta Lacks. Cells from Lacks’ tumor are taken and experimented on without her knowledge. These cells, known as HeLa cells, are the first immortal human cells ever grown. The topic of HeLa cells is at the center of abundant controversial debates. Despite the fact that her cells are regarded as, “one of the most important advancements in the last hundred years” (4), little is actually known about the woman behind the cells. Skloot sets out on a mission to change this fact and share the story of the woman from whom the cells originate and her family as they deal with the effects these cells have on them.
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...
In the book, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, by Rebecca Skloot, the author highlights the scientific advances of HeLa cells, as well as the personal setbacks of Henrietta Lacks’ family. HeLa is a commonly used cell line in laboratories worldwide and is so often referred to as “the cell line that changed modern science”. This line of immortal cells has helped advance science in ways beyond compare. HeLa has allowed cell testing, cell cloning, and the discovery of various vaccines, including the HPV vaccine. While HeLa has done wonders in the medical field, it has caused unrepairable damage among the Lacks family.
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...
In 1951, the sickness of a poor African American woman named Henrietta Lacks -also know as HeLa- would go on to change the face of scientific research; without her consent. Henrietta Lacks went into John Hopkins Hospital in hopes of medical treatment, but instead her cells were unlawfully stolen from her and used for scientific advances in the world of medicine for the creations of the polio vaccine, cell cloning, vitro fertilization, and gene mapping. Long after Henrietta's death, Henrietta's family was forced to live a life of poverty without medical insurance simply because they could not afford it although their mothers cells had yielded billions of dollars due to its advances in the medical world. The scientific community and the media
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.
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.
As I looked up recent articles about the HeLa cells I find that her cells still exist today and are being used for genome sequencing (Nature.com). Doctors are using the same cells from over 50 years ago to better our medicine and medical advances. I wonder what Henrietta thinks of all this. It is an amazing thing in the long run because of what we discovered, but it is truly a terrible thing because it was done without consent and she had no choice. This also caused a lot of pain for her family and if only this could have been done on someone who consented and agreed, maybe it would not be such a negative event in history.
The first time, the author, Rebecca Skloot heard of Henrietta Lacks was during a biology class at a community college. "Everybody learns about these cells in basic biology, but what was unique about my situation was that my teacher actually knew Henrietta’s real name and that she was black" (Zielinski). This first initial encounter would begin the search for the unknown story behind the real woman, whose name no one had really heard of. Henrietta had cancerous cells taken from her that would be known as HeLa cells in science literature; the first human cells to reliably and proliferately be produced in a laboratory. These cells became one of the crucial research materials for health and genetic science studies (such as developing the polio vaccine, cloning. and gene mapping), the foundation of medical research and scientific discoveries worldwide. They were also the impotence to a great deal of controversy due to them being taken without the knowledge or consent of the donor or her family; "enduring nearly 60 years of anguish directly related to the success of the Hela cell line" as stated in a review by Norman Fost (87). He brought light to
later in the passage. In the article, “ The Good, the Bad, and the HeLa”, Alexandra del Carpio, who has a PhD in chemical engineering from the University of California states that this led to her cells “being the first immortal cell line cultured by scientists”, specifically a scientist named George Gey (“The Good, the Bad, and the HeLa”). Gey is the researcher at Johns Hopkins University who took the cell sample from Henrietta Lacks and is a world renowned scientist, famous for creating the first cells of HeLa. From his perspective, all that mattered were the cells. He didn’t focus on the woman behind them, or what injustice would happen to her and her family. As a researcher, his main goal was to find a cure for cancer.
In The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, multiple cell research studies involving Henrietta’s cells are described. Author Rebecca Skloot writes about Henrietta Lacks’ journey through her cervical cancer and how her cells changed the lives of millions long after her death. Skloot relates the history of cell research, including those studies which were successful and those that were not so successful. It is necessary for the author to include the achievements and disturbing practices of scientists throughout this history to inform readers and focus on the way Henrietta’s cells were used. Truth always matters to readers and Henrietta’s family deserves the truth.
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.
At that time scientist were unable to keep human cells alive in culture but with Henrietta’s not only were they able to keep them alive but they reproduced every 24 hours and they kept going.
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