Would people in 1951 feel any different if they knew black people could produce lifesaving cures with technology? Henrietta Lacks was a black woman that got cervical cancer and went to Hopkins hospital because it was the closest segregated hospital around. While Henrietta was as Hopkins, they were doing tests and during that process, Dr. Gey took Henrietta’s cells without her consent.
Henrietta was diagnosed with Cervical cancer doctors took samples without her consent. She had five kids and died at Hopkins hospital on October 4, 1951 being only 31 years old. What truly killed her was the toxins of the radiation treatments. Only some people knew that she was a black woman. Yet, most people did not know her real name.
I believe that publishing this in 1951 would not have been any different because most people never knew the full truth about HeLa. Such as who it came from and what her real name
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People did not know the truth about HeLa because Hopkins hospital hid the fact that they took living samples of Henrietta’s cells without consent. “-Add quote-“they did it to continue and advance in their research.
From HeLa the scientific world was booming with questions. “–Add quote-“they asked questions such as where was HeLa from and who’s the patient was with the cells. Not to mention Hopkins did not release Henrietta name because they did not want people to find out who she really was. In fact, they kept her out of the loop the whole time she spent at Hopkins. For the most part scientists and doctors credited themselves and technology for the new scientific discoveries for the cells.
However one thinks that Henrietta wasn’t known since she was a black patient at Hopkins who got her rights violated at a non- segregated hospital by doctors, but according to the research: ---add quote---”. They did not want Henrietta lacks to be known because it was against the codes. The codes such
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks is a novel written by Rebecca Skloot, a science reporter, depicting the lives of Henrietta Lacks’s family and their connection between them and Henrietta’s famous cancer cells “HeLa Cells”. Henrietta Lacks was diagnosed with cervical cancer in 1951 and was treated with radium and radiation therapy. During her treatment process, the tumor and other cancerous tissue that was removed from her body was sent George Gey's lab at Hopkins to be grown in test tubes all without Lacks’s consent or knowledge. The cells were successfully able to divide and give the scientific community a good supply of human cancer cells to experiment on. The Lacks’s family was never informed about the cells even when there were amazing
Not to mention times were different when it came to handling human rights. For example, as mentioned in the book, “...the Nuremberg Code and the American Medical Association Code of ethics, which clearly said that doctors should keep patient information confidential, the Hippocratic Oath wasn’t law,” meaning many doctors could do as they pleased when testing patients. It wasn’t standard practice to inform patients that their information was being used in medical research. As a result of this, the HeLa cells were discovered and have been used for good. For example, they are responsible for helping advance the polio vaccine, chemotherapy, cloning, gene mapping, and much more.
On October 4, 1951, at 12:51 a.m. Henrietta Lacks died. Shortly after Henrietta’s death, the construction of what would be called the HeLa factory began. It’s sole purpose, to end polio. In February of 1952, Jonas Salk announced that he had developed the world’s first polio vaccine, but couldn’t administer it until further testing.
The Fluidity of Henrietta Lacks. Gender Norms & Racial Bias in the study of the Modern “Henrietta Lacks” Henrietta Lacks was an African American woman whose cancer cells were the source of the HeLa cell line, the first immortalized cell line and one of the most important cell lines in medical research. An immortalized cell line will reproduce indefinitely under specific conditions, and the HeLa cell line continues to be a source of invaluable medical data to present day. Lacks was the unwitting source of these cells from a tumor biopsied during treatment for cervical cancer at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland, U.S. in 1951. The cells were then cultured by George Otto Gey who created the cell line known as HeLa, which is still
One of her diseased cervix and another of her not diseased cervix. When Henrietta died, her cells were a very big profit for the John Hopkins Hospital, but Henrietta’s grave wasn’t even labelled, and her family gained no profit from the HeLa cells. I think that’s very unethical. Henrietta’s family didn’t even know that HeLa cells were being sold all over the world until some years after they were taken. In 2010 Henrietta’s grave was labelled.
During the twentieth century, the word had known many unprecedented inventions and discoveries that had radically shaped our way of life. The field of discovery that touched human’s life the most, was the medical field. One of the most important achievements in science that opened the doors to many other scientific discoveries was the seccefull culture of the first human cells in laboratory. Those cells were named HeLa. HeLa cells were taken from the cervical of a black woman in Charles Hopkins hospital in Baltimore, where she went to trait cancer.
They didn’t grow the HeLa cells for a good cause. I think that it was good that journalists wanted to find out the real woman behind HeLa cells and wanting to contacting the family. The public and Henrietta’s family should have the right to know that Henrietta is the woman whose cells have changed the world. When Henrietta had passed away, her children were sent away to live with Ethel and Galen. Joe received such great abuse from Ethel.
HeLa has made a great contribution to the way that the world sees and learns about cells. The HeLa cells have a astonishing story behind them. This story starts with a women names Henrietta Lacks. In the book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks Rebecca Skloot told us the journey of the Lacks family and pointed out many ethical problems throughout the book. The issue of race was what stood out the most to me as I was reading.
After HeLa cells became widespread, industries like Microbiological Associates in Chapter 13 commercialized the production of HeLa and sold HeLa cells in the millions to scientists all over the world. However, no one at Microbiological Associates bothered to ask where HeLa cells are from and why none of the profits go anywhere else. Henrietta’s cells were used as a means to earn money for the company and a means for George Gey to be famous. Even her healthcare physician Dr. TeLinde used Henrietta as a means for expanding on his cervical cancer procedure of using radium. As Henrietta and her visit to Johns Hopkins was essentially her being used as a stepping stone for another person’s career, she was treated as a means to an end.
The scientists and media that did not know the name Henrietta Lacks but knew the name of the cell line HeLa showed the disregard Scientists had for the Lacks family. In 1951, poor African American women named Henrietta lacks discovered what she thought was a “knot in her stomach” that turned out to be cervical cancer. Doctors thought they could take a few cells from Henrietta without her consent or
At the first glance, I was really interested about what made this nonfiction scientific book one of the most famous books in cancer categories. After I finished reading the first part of the book, which is called life, I knew that the main character in this book, Henrietta Lacks is the well-known named person in the biological science world, HeLa. As what I have learned in my undergraduate studies, HeLa cell is a type of immortal cell line which is the oldest and the most widely used cell lines in many biological research projects, especially in cancer research. Through what I have read so far, the most shocking part to me is the truth that the patient – Henrietta Lacks herself even did not know that her cells and the research conducted from
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 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.
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. During this time, there was an extensive lack of medical care for colored people.
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