The Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks By Rebecca Skloot

Medical Racial Inequality

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, a non-fiction book by Rebecca Skloot, shows the issue of racial inequality, most specifically, in the medical side of things. This book is a powerful narration of Henrietta Lacks’ life, death and everything that came after. Henrietta Lacks is an African American woman whose cervical cancer cells were taken in 1951 by doctors at Johns Hopkins. They were used without her permission or knowledge, which would then turn into the first ever immortal cell line that would be known as HeLa. Henrietta’s family would remain unaware of the use of her cells and the multi-billion dollar industry that grew from them. They would never receive any compensation for their contribution to the medical

Black patients were usually denied access to medical care, and many doctors thought that black patients were inferior to whites. Henrietta was treated at Johns Hopkins for her cervical cancer where she recieved below-average medical care due to her race. Though the hospital was one of the few that even allowed African American patients, it was known for conducting unethical experiments on their patients. Henrietta’s medical records would later reveal her doctors never told her the true severerity of her cancer, and also the fact that they were taking her cells for research purposes. In the words of Rebecca Skloot, “Henrietta knew nothing about her cells growing in a laboratory. After leaving the hospital, she went back to life as usual.” (Skloot 42) The issue of racial inequality in the medical field is further demonstrated by Henrietta’s cells being used to create a multi-billion dollar industry while her family never received any compensation. Even though HeLa cells were used in multiple scientific advancements, such as creating the polio vaccine, Henrietta’s family was still left in

When Deborah enters Johns Hopkins to finally go take a look at her mother’s cells, she glances at the bench full of both white and black patients waiting for their appointment. As she is looking at the bench, it flashes back to when Henrietta was sitting in the same exact waiting room before her surgery. One thing you can takeaway from the scene is during Henrietta’s time, the waiting room was for African Americans only. You can clearly see the bench was a much lower quality than how it is now due to the waiting room being integrated. This shows how Johns Hopkins once treated their black patients as inferiors as opposed to their white counterparts by giving them less comfortable and practicle