Henrietta Lacks: An Analysis

Through her life she expressed doubtful attitudes toward the universe. Sylvia Plath, the Marilyn Monroe of literature, 20th century American author, made a large impact in society through writing about her life and the morbid realities, which she has experienced, have been fascinated with, and written and published. She starts her fascinations with death fairly young down by the seaside. Sylvia Plath was born at Boston’s Memorial Hospital on October 27,

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks tells the story of Henrietta, an African-American woman whose cells were used to create the first immortal human cell line. Told through the eyes of her daughter, Deborah Lacks, aided by journalist Rebecca Skloot. Deborah wanted to learn about her mother, and to understand how the unauthorized harvesting of Lacks cancerous cells in 1951 led to unprecedented medical breakthroughs, changing countless lives and the face of medicine forever. It is a story of medical arrogance and triumph, race, poverty and deep friendship between the unlikeliest people. There had been many books published about Henrietta’s cells, but nothing about Henrietta’s personality, experiences, feeling, life style etc.

From the viewpoint of the Lacks family, HeLa has only brought pain. Henrietta’s cells became a great success to scientists everywhere, but the Lacks family was left with no mother or credit. While HeLa cells were off taking part in experiments, the Lacks family had no idea that a part of their mom was still alive. When they finally received word of Henrietta’s cells being used worldwide they were angry for receiving no credit or money. Reporters harassed the Lacks family to try and find information about the cells, but soon realized the Lacks family knew nothing about them.

Rebecca Skloot develops the idea that poverty comes with many difficult situations, in the book, "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks". True, Henrietta and her family were poor, could barely afford their medical bills, and they didn 't get the extended care that they deserved. You will learn how being poor can change your life and what is done with it . In the book, Henrietta 's daughter, Deborah, has many medical problems and she has to spend all her money on not even all her medicine.

Clinical information A 35 years old female presented at the national maternity hospital (NMH) at week 12 gestation for liver function test (LFTs). According to the NMH reference ranges the patient had normal LFTs (1). The expected date of the delivery was 15/10/2016. In the week 37+2 gestation the woman felt pain and called the community midwife office they took her immediately to the delivery ward in NMH and they found that she has a high blood pressure 142/90, high urate and proteinuria which indicate preeclampsia disease.

In the case of Henrietta Lacks and her family, the mistreatment of doctors and lack of informed consent defined nearly 60 years of the family’s history. Henrietta Lacks and her children had little to no information about serious medical procedures and the use of Henrietta’s cells in research. Henrietta’s cells launched a multibillion-dollar industry without her consent and doctors even took advantage of her children’s lack of education to continue their research without questions: “[Doctor] did not explain why he was having someone draw blood from Deborah… he wrote a phone number and told her to use it for making more appointments to give more blood” (188). Deborah did not have the knowledge to understand the demands or requests the doctors made of her, and the doctors did not inform her explicitly.

Her doctor collected cancerous cells and healthy cells from her cervix and gave them to the cancer researcher, George Otto Gey, who was trying to keep cells alive for more than a couple days. Henrietta endured intense radium treatments, but she still died at the age of 31, leaving her husband and five children behind. An amazing discovery was made Henrietta’s cell were immortal. Racism is prevalent in this book through the limited availability of healthcare, unethical behaviors of the doctors, and how racism affected her family. During this time, there was an extensive lack of medical care for colored people.

She then goes on to scream for Teddy, her little brother, wanting to know how he 's doing, and she doesn’t stop worrying about him until she gets an answer. However in the book, Mia is mostly concerned about herself. She travels through the hospital following herself around and only makes slight remarks about other characters within the plot. When her family died she was obviously upset but there were only about two sentences focused on the deaths because of how focused on herself she was. Forman does so that people could understand how Mia was very confused as to what was happening to herself, and she wanted to make sure that was clear to

Terry Tempest Williams wrote a strong and passionate essay, The Clan of One-Breasted Women, about her experience with finding out about nuclear testing in addition, what she believes was the cause of breast cancer that most of the women in her family were suffering from. Williams narrates her experience throughout the essay from the time she found out about the nuclear testing, through her being caught crossing into a testing site, illegally. The essay follows Williams throughout her experience and how it affected her family. Not only does Williams use diction, tone, and mood to get her point across. She also makes a strong argument through the use of ethos, pathos, and logos.

They were too busy fighting the War; but because they did not died in battle, they found neither glory nor redemption in living. They had sacrificed their youth and they were angry about it. Even worse for most teens, their fathers viewed their children as burdens—punishment for not dying in the war. The War had taken their teen years. Then their children proceeded to ruin their adult life.

Where Do Limits Matter? The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks is a biography, which describes the life of a woman whose cells reproduced even after her death. Rebecca Skloot the author of the book goes on a search to discover who Henrietta Lacks was and why no one knew the owner of the cells that saved countless lives for decades. Despite Rebecca Skloot finding Henrietta’s family and learning about their lives and history of their mother, the family was never aware of 〖HeLa〗^1 and what scientists were using her cells for until twenty years later.

What is HeLa? Who is Henrietta Lacks? And how did this single woman change the entire perspective of the medical field? These questions will be answered in this following book report. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks is about Henrietta, who was born a poor tobacco farmer, whose cells were taken without her consent, but she quickly became one of the most important tools for the medical field, yet her name remained virtually unknown.

Henrietta Lacks The purpose of Rebecca Skloot’s book, “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks,” is to tell the story of Henrietta Lacks, her illness, and how she completely changed science without even knowing it. Henrietta Lacks, a name that had been known to the world only as HeLa up until recent years; the first two letters of a name that belonged to a poor African American tobacco farmer. Henrietta Lacks was a woman who died of cervical cancer in 1951 and HeLa, the line of cells taken from Henrietta that were the first line of cells to reproduce and survive in the lab indefinitely.

Informed consent tends to spark major ethical controversy in the medical world. Many people believe that ALL humans deserve the right to know what research or tests are being done within their body, as well as the understanding of all the risks and costs that are associated with treatment. Other people believe that the right of informed consent should vary from person to person. This disputable topic is also explored throughout the novel, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot. As the story progresses, the reader soon discovers that without the lack of informed consent given to Henrietta Lacks, the discovery of the famous immortal HeLa cells would have never occurred.