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The Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks By Rebecca Skloot

962 Words4 Pages

People may argue that the usage of HeLa cells should be continued. However, that is not true. Before we jump into that, what actually are HeLa cells? HeLa cells are an immortal cell line that were taken from a woman named Henrietta Lacks. Henrietta was a black woman who died of cervical cancer. One day at the John Hopkins hospital, her cells were taken from her without permission. She didn’t know that walking in that hospital that day, would change the way medical research is going nowadays. The legalities are undeniably in check. However, the ethics behind Henrietta’s story are not. Henrietta signed a waiver that gave the scientists to do things if they feel it will help her. The waiver never did say they could pass her cells around to other …show more content…

Today, we still have issues with the same problem. The doctors took advantage of the HeLa cells. They looked down because Henrietta was black, they thought they didn’t need to ask for her permission. The fact we still use these cells, shows a lack of respect to the colored. If we change this, we can show that there are ways to stop diversity and move on from the past. On the topic of respect, there was also a lack of respect related to her family. The Lacks family were not all on board for the usage of HeLa cells. Infact, not until about 20 years later did the scientist have the audacity to mention it to them. When Henrietta’s children were informed that her mother's cells are still living today, they were very rudely informed. The scientists wanted more information about Henrietta, so they went to her children to collect more blood samples. If they didn’t want to blood samples, the children probably would have never found out about the cells in the first place. Scientists started to make a profit off from HeLa cells as well. The family got nothing but stress because of them. “Everyone is making funds off Henrietta’s cells,” Lacks grandson, Ron Lacks, told the sun. “I am sure my grandmother is up in heaven saying,”Well, what about my

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