Why Is Henrietta Lacks Unethical

Introduction The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot is the story of Henrietta Lacks and her cells. When Henrietta was diagnosed with cervical cancer her cells were taken without her consent. These cells, unlike most cells, did not die in culture. Over the years, they have been constantly replicating and are used in experiments all over the world.

On January 29, 1951, an African American woman named Henrietta Lacks was diagnosed with Stage 1, Epidermoid carcinoma of the cervix, after her visit to John Hopkins Hospital. Henrietta began radium treatments which was proven to kill cancer cells and a safer option than surgery, according to her physician Howard Jones. Jones increased Henrietta’s dose of radiation in hopes to decrease the size of the tumors however the treatments were proven ineffective and her skin was burned blacker while the pain grew unbearable until she passed away on October 4, 1951. She left behind her husband David “Day” and five children: Lawrence, Elsie, David Jr, Deborah, and Zakariyya (Joe). This paper will focus on how Henrietta Lack’s and her family’s experience

The story of Henrietta Lacks involves an extreme violation of privacy. The book describes and discusses issues related to access of personal information from medical records, use of tissue samples, informed consent, and privacy invasion. These are issues that have raised debate, and are of concerns to me as a social worker. Other significant issues in this book relate to a lack of respect for Henrietta Lacks and her family, as well as justice, race, and social class. Being a social worker and reading this book made me so upset.

According to the National Cancer Institute, about 40% of people will be diagnosed with cancer at some point in their life, and there were approximately 13,776,251 people living with cancer in 2012. Cancer is a common disease with many types and forms. The book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot shows the story of a woman with cervical cancer, and how her illness affected herself and her family. Although cancer affects a patient physically, it also has effects on the patient mentally and financially, as well as it challenges patients to change their lifestyles for the better.

Henrietta Lack was an African American woman born in 1920 who helped science define some of the world’s medical discoveries. Many woman were dying every year from cervical cancer. Little did she know what the future held for her and millions of other people. This situation saddens me as a medical professional because a human was treated as a specimen rather than a person. Even though this was many decades ago, I feel as though there still should have been standard practices in place that prevented this kind of behavior from those who are supposed to be trusted most, health care professionals.

The article “The End of the Henrietta Lacks Saga?” From the Smithsonian magazine was written by Rachel Nuwer in 2013. The Smithsonian is a magazine from the museum in Washington, D.C. Authors should use critical thinking when writing magazine articles, but some do not. Nuwer successfully informed readers about Lacks and what happened 1950 until now.

The book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, written by Rebecca Skloot and examines the life of Henrietta Lacks and her peculiar situation with her mysterious cells. This paper will focus on chapter two in the novel and how it becomes the most important part of the book when it comes to understanding Henrietta’s life story. Chapter two is called “Clover (1920-1942)”, the chapter itself dissects the early life of Henrietta and the challenges she had growing up. In this chapter, it goes over the gender, economic, and racial obstacles that greatly impacted her. It is important to understand the socio-economic conditions that led Henrietta to be treated less than human.

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.

In the book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, education plays a substantial role in what occurs throughout the book. Many major events are related to people not understanding what is happening to them. Skloot brings up the topic ’Lack of Education,’ frequently and this affected Henrietta's treatments, and how her family viewed the situation, and how the black community viewed scientist overall. In many occasions lack of education causes a major event to happen, “she didn't write much, and she hadn't studied science in school,”(pg 16) with little education Henrietta had no idea what was wrong with her. Without Henrietta or her family knowing symptoms of certain diseases Henrietta does not go to the hospital till the end.

If Henrietta’s was a white, educated, rich women from an affluent neighborhood. I do not believe the outcome would have been different. I do not think race, gender or social economic status, or the fact that she died in a segregated hospital, played a major role in the outcome of his ethical dilemma. I hypothesize that when Dr. Richard TeLinde, head of gynecology and Dr. George Gey, head of tissue culture, found out that Henrietta’s cells were immortal they were so intrigued, it is as if they had hit the scientific discovery of a lifetime jackpot. The fact that her cells kept reproducing at the rate that it did, I think they were amazed and fascinated by it.

The 1950s were a time of turmoil between Blacks and Whites. Caught amid racism and segregation, blacks were viewed as inferior to whites, which resulted in unfair treatment by whites in almost all socio-economic circumstance. Hospitals and medical (facilities) were no exception, African-Americans were looked upon as test subjects rather than human beings, doctor’s experimented on black patients without proper consent. (from them). One instance where this occurred was Henrietta Lacks from the book, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot.

Is it right for one's life to be manipulated for the use of scientific research or is it just a evasion on the person's privacy. Henrietta Lacks was a African American with cells that intrigued many people, she was diagnosed with cancer leaving her to be cared for at her local hospital, where she would later die due to the extremity of the illness. While at the hospital she was unaware that the doctors there were experimenting on her taking cell samples from her body, to help find a resolution to multiple diseases. The people who examined Henrietta manipulated her and the rest of her family to gain information on her cellular structure to be ahead of others looking to achieve the same objective. Henrietta Lacks cells should have never been evaluated because it's an evasion of her freedom, a danger to her personal health, and cause conflicts.

Henrietta Lacks was thirty years old and found a ‘knot’ on her cervix, which led to her going to Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. She was diagnosed with cervical cancer and treated with radium and x-ray therapy. Some of the tissue was removed from her tumor and sent to George Gey’s lab to be grown in test tubes. Gey was in charge of the Tissue Culture Department at Hopkins and had been researching and experimenting to attempt to make cells to divide so they could have an unlimited supply of cells to experiment on. Henrietta nor her family knew about the tissue sample and neither Gey or Hopkins informed them.

Rebecca Skloot’s purpose in The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks is to present Henrietta and her family’s story while presenting issues regarding science, ethics, race, and class in Henrietta’s story. Skloot also had a major goal of teaching people about Henrietta’s case so that it could be learned from in the future. This purpose can be broken down into three sub-purposes: showing the world the woman behind the science, discussing the roles of race and class, and critiquing science and ethical issues. By informing the reader about Henrietta Lacks’ cells that have changed the medical world and about the controversy surrounding them, Skloot is successful in presenting her purpose. All of these smaller purposes come together to create a novel that makes the reader think, feel, and want more of the Lacks’ riveting story.