The Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks By Rebecca Skloot
Henrietta Lacks, the “Patient”
HeLa cells made history beyond polio vaccines and outer space experiments. In Rebecca Skloot’s bestseller, “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks,” HeLa cells went beyond just the successful research, cures, and treatments - they told the story of the Lacks family, and the unethical behaviors in the medical field of the 1950s. Henrietta Lacks was treated as a research subject, rather than just as a patient. Her physicians unethically withheld information relating to informed consent, and uses of her biospecimen, while sharing her private information. They ignored her rights of voluntary choice, disrespected her confidentiality, and lacked communication with both her, and her family, discriminating against her race.
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Patient care is based around the individual- their best interest, treatment, and health concerns. Research is based around furthering knowledge within the medical world, by testing on people, and improving lives for future patients. In Henrietta’s case, she went to John Hopkins with the plan of being treated as a patient only, and was used for research, without education or consent. Making only a small effort to relieve her pain through radiation treatment, the physicians removed cells from Henrietta’s cervix to use in later studies. There is another line blurred, as Spigner, a University of Washington professor makes a point, stating, “The life and death of Henrietta Lacks is a cautionary tale that reflects the inherent contradiction between the stated purpose of medical research to provide benefit to humankind and the reality of blatant profiteering in the name of the advancement of science” (12). Whether the motive behind the research was to improve human health, or to make money, the physicians neglected the real reason Henrietta was there, seeking help as a patient. Their later studies proved to be successful, but the unethical actions behind taking the cells remain just as prominent as the
Henrietta Lacks Research Papers
460 Words | 2 PagesHenrietta Lacks was a poor black tobacco farmer,born in Roanoke, Virginia on August 1 ,1920.Henrietta’s mother died when Henrietta was very young, her dad did not wanted to take care of her and her siblings, so they were sent with different relatives. She grew up with her grandfather. Henrietta died at age of 31 years old of cervical cancer, on October 4, 1951. At the age of twenty-nine she felt a “knot” inside of her. In the year of 1950, she had a full-fledged tumor just three months after she had felt the knot.
A Comparison Of Skid Row Cancer Study And The Henrietta Lacks
588 Words | 3 PagesThere have been many conflicts in the past in the medical field about violating patients’ privacy rights. In the book, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, there is an issue where her cells are taken to check what she went to the hospital for, yet, her cells weren’t only checked for that. Her cells were being transported, sold, and even injected into other people for experiments without any form of consent. The Skid Row Cancer Study and the Henrietta Lacks study are similar in the way that they both have some ethical issues having to do with consent. Around the 1950’s, Dr. Perry Hudson (a medical researcher from Columbia University) wanted to perform some prostate biopsies to see who had prostate cancer in Manhattan on 1,200.
The Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks By Houston Mullican
734 Words | 3 Pages“Participation by individuals capable of giving informed consent as subjects in medical research must be voluntary” (Ethics in Medical Research and Publication 2). This was a clear violation in ethics by taking Henrietta’s cells, but at the time racism was still alive and the doctors were a lot less ethical considering all the ethical violations in the medical field happening at this time. The HeLa cell line developed from her cells was estimated at a whopping 3 billion dollars, and none goes to the family. The family is struggling to afford their own medical care while companies are still profiting off their mother. Even with all this hardship put on the family some good has come out of this malicious act such as when HeLa cells were used to test vaccines for polio saving millions or when telomerase ,an enzyme used to fix DNA, allowed scientists to test anti-cancerous drugs that would have killed normal cells (Popular Science, pars.
The Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks By Rebecca Skloot
520 Words | 3 PagesRebecca uncovers that when Henrietta received treatment for cancer, a sample tissue was cut from the tumor growing in her cervix without Henerietta’s knowledge. Dr. TeLinde, the leading doctor in the study of cervical cancer, took tissue samples from women in public wards without their consent. This was common practice back in that time, and TeLinde figured that it was a fair exchange since the people in the public ward of Hopkins Hospital were receiving treatment without payment. Skloot lets us know that TeLinde was in the middle of proving that invasive tumors developed from noninvasive tumors. His research would be further helped by Gey and Margaret, who worked for over 30 years in producing an immortal lineage of human cells outside of the body.
Henrietta Lacks Research Papers
1145 Words | 5 PagesBorn in Roanoke, Virginia on August 1, 1920, Henrietta Lacks would one day unknowingly be the reason for one of the most important cell lines in medical research. Henrietta Lacks became the source of HeLa cells after her death on October 4, 1951 (aged 31), cells which were the first immortalized cell line in history; immortalized cells are cells that will reproduce indefinitely under specific conditions. While Henrietta’s cells were and continue to be used to treat many illnesses, there was never any consent given from Henrietta herself, or any of her family. To this day, no portion of the billions of dollars made from HeLa cells ever found it’s way to Henrietta’s family. The medical ethics in the 1950’s are very questionable in comparison
Henrietta Lacks Cells Alive For Medical Industry Benefits
1326 Words | 6 PagesLacks’ Cells Alive for Medical Industry Benefits The story of Henrietta Lacks in this reading is fascinating. By using Ms. Lacks’ cells, medical science has developed many cures. By one woman contributing her cells decades ago without her knowledge, on an involuntary basis, the impact has become mind-boggling. At the same time, it is disheartening and shaming to know that Henrietta’s family was unable to pay for medical attention for her.
The Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks By Rebecca Skloot
1263 Words | 6 PagesCompared to the Lacks family, the Lacks knew their mother didn’t give consent for them to be using her cells for research. Skloot gives this example to the readers to compare both victims and their families suffered from misuse of informed consent. Even though this happen to the Henrietta in the 1950s, John situation is a little more current in time, it
The Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks By Rebecca Skloot
484 Words | 2 PagesSince the 2010 release of Rebecca Skloot’s New York Times bestselling non-fiction book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, many people both in and outside the scientific community are at least aware of the story of Henrietta Lacks and HeLa cells . The almost-mythical tale of the immortal HeLa cell line, taken from Henrietta Lacks’s cancer-ridden cervix and grown in culture for more than sixty years now, has evolved and spread throughout the scientific and popular imaginary , surfacing in accounts of the miraculous power and possibility of scientific research and debates surrounding medical ethics . While HeLa was used to develop the polio vaccine, continues to be of use in the research of AIDS, leukemia, Parkinson’s disease, and a host of other medical conditions, and even sent up in the first space missions to test the conditions of human cells in zero gravity, the cell line also carries with it the history of the woman in whom it originated, the history of slavery and racism in America, and the entanglement of race, gender, class, and sexuality in the sciences.
The Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks By Rebecca Skloot
672 Words | 3 PagesThe chapter, "Illegal, Immoral, and Deplorable" from Rebecca Skloot's The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, details the process by which scientist Chester Southam ran experiments on people using Henrietta Lacks cancer cells without giving informed consent. Chester Southam is a virologist concerned about the safety of other scientist working with HeLa. Southam begins to conduct unorthodox experiments on patients that already have cancer. The patients never know that Southam is injecting them with harmful cells. The central idea of the text is that Chester Southam is an inconsiderate, deceiving, and selfish scientist that cares more about his benefit than others.
Impact Of Henrietta Lacks On Medical Research Then And Now
1291 Words | 6 PagesThrough her cells we see the impact it created in medical research and understand ethical issues that arose from this experience. I, as many others in the world, strive for an answer on how to stop cancer from occurring and curing it once and for all. 1951 in Baltimore, Henrietta Lacks was a beautiful 30-year-old mother of five children who went to the gynecologist because of spotting between monthly cycles. On examination a lesion was found on her cervix that was biopsied for pathology and found to be epidermoid carcinoma of the cervix, Stage I cancer. This was an interesting case because when Henrietta’s cancer cells were tested they weren’t like other cancer cells; they were aggressive and grew very rapidly.
The Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks
1099 Words | 5 PagesIn The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, the main character Henrietta Lacks died from cervical cancer in 1951. Fortunately a few months before she died, her doctor took a little sample of her cancerous cells. This is important because this was the first and most important types of human cells ever to live and produce endlessly. She is famous because her cells helped out scientists all over to make some of the most valuable discoveries in up to date medical history. The bad news about this was her cells were taken without any of her consent.
Henrietta Lacks Impact On Society
442 Words | 2 PagesIn the 1950s the first ‘immortal’ human cells were grown from a cancerous tissue sample taken from Henrietta Lacks, a poor black woman, without her knowledge or consent. She had died shortly after, at the unfortunately early age of 31, of a severe case of cervical cancer. Henrietta had a list of ailments that included neurosyphilis, gonorrhea, and HPV the leading cause of her cervical cancer and, ultimately, her death. The hospital that had diagnosed her cancer, Johns Hopkins, had supposedly been one of the best hospitals in the country, but it participated in discriminatory and amoral research practices when treating African Americans. Not only taking taking Henrietta’s cells without her consent, but injecting them and other cancer cells into patients without their knowledge.
Henrietta Lacks
477 Words | 2 PagesIn August of 2013, Talha Khan Burki wrote “Righting a Long-standing Wrong for Henrietta Lacks” for Lancet Oncology. Burki’s purpose was to highlight the problem with the sequence data of patients’ cells (namely, Henrietta Lacks) being publicly released and to inform people of the privacy risks involved. Burki did a very good job at explaining what the issue was, what had been done about it and what needed to happen. Generally, readers struggle and become overwhelmed when they see a large sum of information all at one time. However, while this article provides the reader with several facts, it makes the reader think and Burki did a very well at writing in a manner that prior knowledge of certain terms or concepts are not critical to comprehending.
Tissue In The 1950s To The 21st Century
381 Words | 2 PagesWhen Henrietta’s case is revealed to people, their first response is usually: “Wasn’t it illegal for doctors to take Henrietta’s cells without her knowledge and consent? Don’t doctors have to tell you when they use your cells in research?” Well...no. At least, not in the 1950s to the early 21st century. People are often confused on how they should feel about this situation, which is understandable.
Henrietta Lacks Discussion Questions
700 Words | 3 PagesWhat are the specific issues raised in the book—legally and ethically? Think about the 1980s John Moore case: the appeal court decision and its reversal by the California Supreme Court. Issues that raised in the book are race issues, the legality of taking adventage of patients who’s family aren’t able to fight for the rights and benefit of their cells. According to California supreme court, Under the duty to obtain informed consent, “a doctor must disclose his intent in using a patient for research and economic gain.” 6.
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