Structural violence has been a major topic in this course “Cooperation and Conflict”, and it has also been one topic that I can relate to and speak on. In the Henrietta Lacks story, structural violence is a big theme. Doctors completely violated her human and civil rights as a patient by not informing her of certain procedures that were done on her body. They took small slices of a cell of hers to research and run tests on it. Though these cells aided in great developments in research and medicine, Henrietta at the very least should have been informed of what exactly they would do it. Also, by that I do not mean in medical terms that she would not understand, but the doctor taking the time to explain to her in a way that she would at least …show more content…
Though her cells made many advancements in medicine, simply informing the family would have been the respectable and responsible thing for the doctor to do. The statement that Henrietta beat science was made and at first I had no idea what was meant by this. Her cells had multiplied by 400 times her body weight after the cells were taken and stored. The cell biologists had no idea how or why. The more time that was spent studying these cells, the more questions that arose in the quest to find the cure for cancer, the greatest in medicine were being defeated by the cells of an African American woman. Therefore, when the statement is made that Henrietta beat science, I take it as her condition and cells were so complex that even the greatest minds could not figure out why they did what they did. She still contributed to many other solutions that could save millions and billions of …show more content…
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
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.
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.
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...
The Immortal life of Henrietta Lacks is a book about the women behind the scientific revolution of using actual cancer cells to perform cancer research. Henrietta Lacks was an African American woman who was barely educated and worked as a tobacco farmer. At the age of thirty she was diagnosed with cervical cancer. In Lacks’ time being uneducated, African American, and a woman was not a great mix. They were often undermined and taken advantage of. When Lacks started to become very ill she went to the nearest hospital that would accept black patients. There the doctor, George Gey, misdiagnosed her illness and took a tissue sample without her consent. After suffering through her illness and trying to keep up with her five children Henrietta died
In The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, author Rebecca Skloot tells the true story of the woman who the famous HeLa cells originated from, and her children's lives thereafter. Skloot begins the book with a section called "A Few Words About This Book", in which a particular quote mentioned captured my attention. When Skloot began writing Henrietta's story, one of Henrietta's relatives told Skloot, "If you pretty up how people spoke and change the things they said, that's dishonest. It’s taking away their lives, their experiences, and their selves" (Skloot). After reading that quote, an array of questions entered my mind, the most important being, "Do all nonfiction authors take that idea into consideration?" Nonfiction is a very delicate and
“Ah, the creative process is the same secret in science as it is in art,” said Josef Mengele, comparing science to an art. He was less of an artist and more of a curious, debatably crazy, doctor. He was a scientist in Nazi Germany. In general, there was a history of injustice in the world targeting a certain race. When Mengele was around, there were very few medical regulations, so no consent had to be given for doctors to take patients’ cells and other tests done on the patients’ bodies without their consent. This was the same time that Henrietta Lacks lived. Henrietta Lacks was an African American woman who went to the doctor because she had cervical cancer. Her cells were taken and are still alive in culture today (Skloot 41). Hence, her cells were nicknamed Immortal (Skloot 41). Although many, at the time, saw no issue with using a patient without consent issue with what?, on numerous occasions since then courts have determined that having consent is necessary for taking any cells. The story of Henrietta lacks is has similarities to an episode of Law and Order titled Immortal, which is an ethical conundrum. Despite this, the shows are not exactly the same and show differences between them. Both of these stories, one supposedly fictional, can also be compared to the injustices performed by Josef Mengele in Nazi Germany.
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks: A Doctoring Lens Rebecca Skloot begins The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks with a quote from Elie Wiesel: Instead, we must see in every person a universe with its own secrets, With its own treasures, with its own sources of anguish, And with some measure of triumph. 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.
Henrietta Lacks was born on August 18, 1920 in Roanoke, Virginia. She stayed with her grandfather who also took care of her other cousins, one in particular whose name is David (Day) Lacks. As Henrietta grew up, she lived with both her Grandpa Tommy and Day and worked on his farm. Considering how Henrietta and Day were together from their childhood, it was no surprise that they started having kids and soon enough got married. As the years continued, Henrietta noticed that she kept feeling like there was a lump in her womb/cervix and discovered that there was a lump in her cervix. Soon enough, Henrietta went to Johns Hopkins Medical Center to get this check and learned that she had cervical cancer. But here is where the problem arises, Henrietta gave full consent for her cancer treatment at Hopkins, but she never gave consent for the extraction and use of her cells. During her first treatment TeLinde, the doctor treating Henrietta, removed 2 sample tissues: one from her tumor and one from healthy cervical tissue, and then proceeded to treat Henrietta, all the while no one knowing that Hopkins had obtained tissue samples from Henrietta without her consent. These samples were later handed to ...
The credibility and trustworthiness of a person can be achieved through their achievements and titles. Writers have the ability of achieving this by appealing to the rhetorical strategy ethos. Rebecca Skloot’s inclusion of her knowledge in science to provide her credibility and numerous information of all her characters in the novel helps develop the rhetorical strategy of ethos. Skoot’s implementation of appealing to ethos aids in emphasizing on the credibility of both herself and all the other characters in the novel. She demonstrates this rhetorical strategy by indicating titles and achievements her characters in the novel. In The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Rebecca Skloot develops the rhetorical strategy of ethos through the use of her characters in the novel consisting of Skloot herself, George Gey, and the virologist Chester Southam.
What is privacy? Well, it’s the state or condition of being free from being observed or disturbed by other people. In terms of information, it is the right to have some control over how one’s own personal information is collected and used. This is a right that has been inherently protected by the U.S Constitution, agreed upon by the Supreme Court, and yet, issues around this very topic arise every day. In The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, the author Rebecca Skloot, addresses this issue in her story of the women behind the infamous HeLa cells. Her story shows that although privacy is a right that is inherently protected by the law, situations of injustice can still occur. Examples of this in the book include when Henrietta’s cells were given to Dr. Gey without any consent from Day, the situation in which Mr. Golde’s spleen was sold without his permission, as well as when the Lacks family were recontacted and mislead about the reasons they were tested years after Henrietta’s death.
While doctors and scientists were making millions of dollars through HeLa research, Henrietta’s family was living in poverty. Lawrence Lacks, Henrietta’s firstborn child, says, “Hopkins say they gave them cells away, but they made millions! It’s not fair! She’s the most important person in the world and her family living in poverty. If our mother so important to science, why can’t we get health insurance?” (pg.168). Someone who disagrees with this standpoint may argue that scientists had been trying for years to develop the perfect culture medium and had a much more hands on experience with the cells (pg.35), therefore, they should be receiving the earnings from any outcomes the HeLa cells may produce. While the scientists were in fact the brains behind the scientific advances, the family should be acknowledged on behalf of Henrietta Lacks. These successes in science would not have been possible without the origin of the cells: Henrietta Lacks. For some of the family, the primary focus was not even the profit. “Since they gone ahead and taken her cells and they been so important for science, Deborah thought, least they can do is give her credit for it.” (pg. 197). Here, Deborah Lacks, Henrietta’s fourth born child, makes it clear that her primary concern is getting her mother the recognition that she deserves for her
Nowadays, when patients are given consent forms, every step is explicitly stated so that there is no confusion or harm. All in all, Henrietta Lacks has contributed and made significant changes to the scientific, ethical, and political aspects of society.
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
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
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.