Tuskegee Experiment

In “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks”, Rebecca Skloot analyzes ethics in past scientific/medical studies, specifically Henrietta Lack’s case, to alter the way the reader sees how modern medicine came to be. Doctors took the cancer cells of a young, poor, African-American woman diagnosed with cervix cancer in 1951, without her consent, and used them to grow an immortal cell line that has made millions of dollars and is still used today. Skloot shows the effect Henrietta’s infamous cells (HeLa cells) have had on the scientific community presently and show the negative effect it has had on her family. The author wants the audience be aware of the how an essential cell line used in research was created with great ethical injustice. Skloot wants audiences to learn a little from Henrietta’s story and at least be aware of the ethical scientific issues today to form their own opinion.

What 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.

The origination of HeLa cells, used in biomedical research for a potential cure for cancer, had made many ground breaking discoveries in science; all thanks to one woman, Mrs. Henrietta Lacks. The history of Mrs. Lacks’s contribution to these studies raised many ethical issues concerning healthcare practice. In the short film, The Way of All Flesh, we learn how these cells were revealed by direct violation of ethical principles. During the 1950s, matters regarding informed consent practices were in their beginning stages of implementation.

The Tuskegee study of Untreated Syphilis began in 1932, mainly designed to determine the history of untreated latent syphilis on 600 African American men in Tuskegee, Alabama. 201 out of 600 men were non-syphilitic just unknowingly involved in the study as a control group This study is known to be “the most infamous biomedical research study in the U.S history”. Most of these men had never visited a doctor and they had no idea what illness they had. All of the men agreed to be a participant thinking they were being treated for “bad blood” and plus they were given free medical care and meals.

Upon reading further on the development of the HeLa cells, it is thus possible that Henrietta 's cell couldn 't just grow at rates that were ordinary between the second and third visiting. However, readers can conclusively assert that Henrietta Lacks had not thoroughly treated and this can be attributed to the color of her skin. Even before people learn of HeLa Cells as well as the use of Henrietta’s tissue without their consent, they were shocked learning what they thought was true that African Americans were being

The Tuskegee Syphilis Study had lots of controversy over the 1900´s. The study happened in a racist and poor time period between 1932 and 1972. It included 600 African American men that were infected with Syphilis. It was conducted in rural and poor Tuskegee, Alabama. The test was to see if African American males responded to Syphilis differently than white males. This study was passed and funded through Congress; however they did not know the full story. The wrong in this study was that the men did not give informed consent and did not receive any treatment. The men were studied till their autopsy, which is obviously death. This sparked much controversy and changed human experimentation forever.

The main ethical problems are that the cells were taken without Henrietta’s permission, and that her family never received reimbursement for Henrietta’s contribution to

This part of the novel begin with the family discovering that their mother’s cells were being used in laboratories everywhere in the world. Her cells were used to help develop drugs for treating, herpes, polio, leukemia, influenza, hemophilia and Parkinson’s disease. Also, they were used to study lactose digestion, sexually transmitted diseases, appendicitis, human longevity, and mosquito mating (Skloot, 4). Part three also covers the amount of profits that were made from HeLa and how much the Lacks family struggled with numerous amounts of medical conditions and other adversities that could have all been alleviated with their share of the HeLa cell line profit. The chapters also cover a few legal cases and once important case (Moore vs. Regents of the University of California) that cause the Supreme Court to conclude that human tissues after being left in the doctor's office, no longer belonged to the patients, rather is in the ownership of doctor or the hospital.

In 1951, at the age of 31 Henrietta Lacks was diagnosed with cervical cancer. Henrietta was under treatment at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, where cells from her malignant tumor were removed. Neither Henrietta nor any of her family members knew about the tissue sample and nor did the Hopkins ever informed them of the situation. Unfortunately after Henrietta’s radiation treatment, her condition continued to worsen and soon she lost her battle to cancer on octomber 4th 1951. Henriettas cells left the Hopkins what they discovered to be known to be the first immortal human cell line.

Henrietta Lacks was a black tobacco farmer from the south who, in 1950, at the age of 30, she was diagnosed with aggressive cervical cancer. Lacks went to John’s Hopkins medical center for treatment for her cancer. In April of 1951, she underwent surgery to remove the larger tumor on her cervix. Henrietta Lacks, died three days following the surgery. Even though Henrietta Lacks died, her cells from the tumor have lived on and have made a major impact on the biomedical community.

However, a few days after doctors removed the tubes and performed an X-Ray exam. The doctors, took two samples, a noncancerous and a cancerous part of her cervix without her permission. These cells would ultimately develop into the HeLa immortal cell line, a universally used cell line in biomedical research. My immediate reaction to the ethical issue with Henrietta Lacks cell taken without her permission disturbed me because I felt if she was a White woman doctors would have asked for permission and would have given credit

Being a victim of racism in the early 1950s, she didn 't get the necessary medical attention needed to treat her. Jones cut a small sample of her lump for a biopsy that showed results of her being diagnosed of cervical cancer or adenocarcinoma, a malignant tumor of the epithelial tissue in her cervix. During her first cancer treatment, Dr. Lawrence Wharton Jr. without Henrietta 's consent took two pieces of live tissue from which her cells: one piece of tissue from her tumor and one from healthy cervical tissue near the tumor. Even after her death, those cells continue to live today. These immortal cells were

Despite the wrongdoings Henrietta Lacks was put through her cells did a lot to help advance science. Her cells helped develop different types of vaccines, which such as her daughter faced. A lot of good and bad came out of Henrietta’s

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.

Henrietta Lacks was a thirty-one year old African American who had five kids and married her cousin David Lacks. Henrietta was diagnosed with cervical cancer, the doctors never informed Mrs. Lacks that her cells were to be tested on. The Lacks family was certainly not advised that Henrietta 's cells were growing at an incredible rate. Because of this, the cancer cells were shipped and bought across the world. The last 8 months of Henrietta’s death became a piece of history nobody would ever want to forget.