Henrietta Lacks Sparknotes

After eight months of treatment and excruciating pain from the tumors that kept appearing everywhere, Henrietta passed away. During that time scientists were developing a factory to mass produce her cells. As new developments with her cells kept occurring, her family was oblivious to it all until one day when Bobette, Henrietta's daughter in-law, ran into someone who shed some light on the subject. A brother of a friend unveiled how Bobette’s mother in-law’s cells were in his lab right now being tested for different things. Bobette then told the family which made Deborah, Henrietta’s daughter ver curious and worried about what they were doing.

Introduction The topic of this paper will be the book “ The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks”. This paper will talk about five main points of the book that I thought were the biggest and most important parts of the book. Growing up As Henrietta was growing up, she lived with her grandfather and other cousins.

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.

An example from the book of applied research is injecting these malignant cells into the arms of sick and healthy patients (Skloot, 2010). Another reason for the use of her cells is because the growth of living cells has been unsuccessful prior to receiving the HeLa cells. It could be the lack of mitosis happening in the cell, and the cells have not been able to reproduce, and create copies of themselves. This is another reason, why the doctors have been keeping a close observation of Henrietta’s children, even making up excuses to collect their blood, and keeping everything a secret. This is important to research because you can have a higher risk of getting a disease through your family’s genes.

About 60 years ago, before African Americans had much respect at all, there was a woman named Henrietta Lacks who was diagnosed with cancer in her cervix. Without asking for permission, Henrietta’s doctors took some of her cells from her cervix, and they took them to do more research on them and tried to grow them for the first time outside of a persons body. Because she was African American, she and the rest of her family were not respected by doctors, or many other people at this time. These cells later became very critical to medical advancements and scientific research for the rest of the world. But, the injustice of this situation raises a large controversy over whether or not this is justified.

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.

In The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, author Rebecca Skloot uncovers the life of Henrietta Lacks and her immortal cells that have allowed some of the greatest scientific breakthroughs in recent history. By studying the lives of Henrietta’s living relatives as well as tracing the medical history of Henrietta herself, Skloot is able to provide Henrietta Lack’s and her family with the recognition they deserve while helping her family come to terms with the mistreatment and injustice they have faced. Starting off with how she came to learn about Henrietta Lacks Skloot delves into Lack’s story. After learning that she has cervical cancer, Lacks is treated at John Hopkins, but unknowingly has her cells collected for study. Scientists discover

Even after Henrietta's death people still kept wanting things from her family when they still didn't even know about her cells. People wanted to do experiments of the family cause their cells had direct connections to Henrietta's. They would tell the family lies such as we are testing to see if they will be positive for cancer but there wasn’t even a test for cancer. The family didn’t know there wasn’t a test because they didn't have knowledge of the science world. Even if the doctors did try to explain the situation to the family they wouldn't understand the meaning of all the big words used.

When first beginning The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, one would think it would be a biography about Henrietta, but it was so much more. It follows the Lacks family, as they learn about their mother, grandmother, sister, and matriarch. The only knowledge the Lacks family had of Henrietta was her medical records, and the family Bible. Deborah Lacks said, “Everybody in the world got her cells” (Skloot pg. 284). By examining the incredible way in which they grew and divided, she was right.

She had five children when she fell ill and was devastated to learn her radium treatments left her unable to have more. She was protective of her family’s feelings, by keeping her cancer a secret from them so as not to worry them. Her family described her as an outgoing and beautiful woman of God. Henrietta and I have very little in common. I’ve never experienced prejudice because of my skin color or lived in a

They fought and did not always get along, but one thing is for certain, family came first to them. Their importance of family shined through when Henrietta was first diagnosed with Cervical cancer. Although they were mostly uneducated, they asked questions and took the time to try to understand the disease Henrietta was diagnosed with. They were there for one another during the most difficult time of their lives. When a family member becomes ill, the rest of the family becomes your rock and shoulder to lean on.

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.

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.

In the book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks Henrietta had a normal life before she found that she had cancer and everything change. Henrietta was born on August 1, 1920. When she was four years old her mom died and her father took the family back to his hometown of Clover. His father took them back to Clover so he could send his ten children to different relatives to live with them. Henrietta went to live with his grandfather and her cousin David or most people call him Day.

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.