Rebecca Skloot's The Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks Analysis

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In this paper, I will analyze Rebecca Skloot’s book, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, concentrating on Henrietta Lacks’ life, as well as ethical controversies and sociological impact surrounding the HeLa cells. First, I will discuss the author’s main arguments and the type of evidence used throughout the paper. Then, I will summarize the life of Henrietta Lacks focusing on her diagnosis and treatment up to her death. After, I will describe the ethical debates that the author presented and how they relate to Henrietta Lacks and the HeLa cells. Finally, I will examine the impact HeLa cells have had on the society, specifically regarding the medical community, as well as the effect HeLa cells had on Henrietta’s family.
In The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Rebecca Skloot mainly focuses on three areas, the life of Henrietta Lacks and her family, ethics in the medical and research fields, and scientific advances due to HeLa cells. Skloot integrates examples of ethical controversies regarding the HeLa cells and related topics, and sociological benefits …show more content…

The family first heard that Henrietta’s cells were alive and being sent around the world, twenty-two years after Henrietta’s death. After discovering that Henrietta’s cells were in circulation, the family began to blame John Hopkins for taking Henrietta’s cells without permission and commercializing the cells to make multi-million dollar industry, while her family was living in poverty without health insurance. The John Hopkins Hospital has made various statements stating that the hospital never received funds for the HeLa cells specifying that Gey donated all of his HeLa cells samples to fellow researchers. Therefore, the sole benefactors of the HeLa cells profits are the biotechnology companies, which sell vials of HeLa cells for up to ten thousand

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