The media and scientific community are guilty of viewing Henrietta Lacks and her family as abstractions.Nonetheless, the central argument of the book is that the scientific community has an ethical obligation to respect the dignity, autonomy, and person-hood of all subjects and individuals with whom it comes into contact. Accordingly, individuals cannot be made into subjects of scientific inquiry without their consent. And, when objects of scientific study (including, for example, the physical material scientists use within a laboratory setting) are sourced from individual people, those individuals deserve to be made aware of such sourcing, and when possible they ought to be appropriately compensated. Therefore, you can see how the scientific
The final violation of ethical principles, in the story of Henrietta Lacks, was the violation of justice. Without the contribution of Henrietta’s cells, many discoveries and vaccines, such as the vaccine that conquered Polio, would not have made their pivotal breakthroughs in biomedical research. Her direct and unknowingly, supportive contribution helped save many people’s lives all over the world. Unfortunately, her named did not receive the recognition it deserved, and her family never received any compensation for profits made from direct use of her
After reading this story, I noticed many ethical issues that were brought up. The first issue is informed consent. Henrietta and her family did not give consent to take her cells and sell them. They never signed any forms or verbally explained
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks written by Rebecca Skloot tells the story of a woman named Henrietta Lacks who has her cervical cancer. It further goes to tell the audience how Henrietta altered medicine unknowingly. Henrietta Lacks was initially diagnosed with cervical cancer in 1951; however, the doctors at John Hopkins took sample tissues from her cervix without her permission. The sample tissues taken from Henrietta’s cervix were used to conduct scientific research as well as to develop vaccines in the suture. Her sample tissues were known as HeLa cells. Skloot purpose is to create awareness among the audience about
Imagine your mother, sister, wife, or cousin was diagnosed with cervical cancer and you believed the doctors were doing everything in their power to help her. Only later you discovered her cells were used for research without consent and she was not properly informed of the risks of her treatment due to her race. This story happened and is told by Rebecca Skloot in The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. Skloot use of narrative and her writing style enhances the understanding of the story. Henrietta Lacks was a young black woman who was diagnosed with cervical cancer at John Hopkins Hospital. Her doctor collected cancerous cells and healthy cells from her cervix and gave them to the cancer researcher, George Otto Gey, who was trying to keep cells alive for more than a couple days. Henrietta endured intense radium treatments, but she still died at the age of 31, leaving her husband and five children behind. An amazing discovery was made Henrietta’s cell were immortal. Racism is prevalent in this book through the limited availability of healthcare, unethical behaviors of the doctors, and how racism affected her family.
The seemingly endless battle for civil rights was one fought long and hard and during the 20th century a time of fruition occurred that allowed for concrete and tangible progress though the efforts of many, including key black intellectual revolutionaries. The call to freedom, and the fight for civil liberties to be bestowed upon people of color, who for hundreds of years were perceived as subordinate was happening. Change was fought through self-determination, and a burgeoning of powerful ideologies that laid the foundation for movement to be made.
Rebecca Skloot develops the idea that poverty comes with many difficult situations, in the book, "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks". True, Henrietta and her family were poor, could barely afford their medical bills, and they didn 't get the extended care that they deserved. You will learn how being poor can change your life and what is done with it .
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. The cells that came from Henrietta Lack’s tumor were extremely strange, normal cells go through something called apoptosis, programed cell death, the cells from Lack’s tumor did not go through this process and continued to divided continually. Doctors and lab pathologists
Multiple times throughout the book it was mentioned that Henrietta’s biopsy took place 60 years ago and a lot of changes have been made to science and ethics. This book did a good job bringing up ethics in science and scientific achievements that have been made over the years, but in some ways it was sensationalized to get the family the recognition they feel they deserved.
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks is a book written by Rebecca Skloot. Chapter 1 begins shortly after Henrietta’s daughter, Deborah, and her son, Joe, were born. After those two were born, she then began to experience vaginal bleeding at the wrong time of the month. Feeling like something was wrong, Henrietta rushed to the doctor. She only went to see the doctor “If she felt she had no other choice”. She rushed to the Gynecologist, Howard Jones. For him only tot reveal that she had a cervical tumor. In 1951, Howard and his boss, Richard Wesley Telinde, were working hard to develop and improve methods for treating cervical cancer. With insufficient methods to gather information about the cancer, a number of women were accidently diagnosed with cervical cancer. Telinde wanted to improve treatment and diagnosis of cervical cancer, so he took tissue samples from Jones’ patients. Growing healthy and cancerous Samples of cervical tissue. They ended up taking Henrietta’s samples, but his coworkers were sure they would die altogether. After the procedure, Henretta Returned home and resumed her normal life once again. Her family had no idea she was sick. Henretta kept her sickness a secret,
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks tells the story of Henrietta, an African-American woman whose cells were used to create the first immortal human cell line. Told through the eyes of her daughter, Deborah Lacks, aided by journalist Rebecca Skloot. Deborah wanted to learn about her mother, and to understand how the unauthorized harvesting of Lacks cancerous cells in 1951 led to unprecedented medical breakthroughs, changing countless lives and the face of medicine forever. It is a story of medical arrogance and triumph, race, poverty and deep friendship between the unlikeliest people. There had been many books published about Henrietta’s cells, but nothing about Henrietta’s personality, experiences, feeling, life style etc. This caught Rebecca’s
It was still illegal for the doctors to take her cells and have their way with them, without her consent. These doctors and scientist did not really care about Henrietta because she was a colored women. Things would have a lot different if Henrietta was a white women with cancer. 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
1. Please outline the history of Henrietta Lacks 's tissue cells. Who did what with the cells, when, where and for what purpose? Who benefited, scientifically, medically, and monetarily?
An essential part of modern society relied on trust, especially the trust of doctors and scientists. People had the right to make an informed decision about their bodies and body parts. People had a right to their body parts, both attached and cell samples collected by doctors. The actions that the medical professions made will continue to affect future generations in both positive and negative ways. In the contemporary biographical novel, the Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Rebecca Skloot used logical opinions to argue about the importance of consent to reveal the lack of morality from those in the medical field which continues to persist today. Scientists and doctors made great discoveries with the HeLa cells of Henrietta Lacks. The family of Henrietta Lacks had to live with the aftermath of decisions made by doctors and
Family, for most people, is defined as a sort of safe haven for people to go to. For others, families may be fragmented, split, or may have wrong ideals as a whole. Broken families, while they may have a long lasting effect on the spouses, can also have a detrimental, long-lasting effect on the children of these marriages which can lead to certain mental illnesses. For example, in the story of the Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Deborah faces the emotional effects of her mother’s death. Other stories such as “A Rose for Emily”, show how Emily 's fathers parenting techniques and a lack of a mother figure burdened her future. Into the Wild explores the emptiness of love which affects the life choices of a man named Chris. All of these situations