The Backtory Of Henrietta Lacks By Rebecca Skloot

What could not have possibly been imagined was how this could ultimately affect the family of Henrietta Lacks. HeLa cells were unlike any other cells. They grew in mass quantities, and continued to multiply and grow in culture whereas other human cells stopped. This eventually lead to interest in the Lacks family and their genetics. Some family members were afraid for their medical health and what would happen to their genetic material if they went to the doctor.

HeLa cells were used in all kinds of research and cure many diseases. They were used in the first mission to space to see what would happen to cells in zero gravity, they were a very important part to finding the polio vaccine, they were used in cloning, gene mapping and also in vitro fertilization (History, Travel, Arts, Science, People, Places/ Smithsonian). Henrietta never had claim to her cell and what they did until 20 years after she died and finally, even after efforts to keep it hiding, in 1970s her real name started to leak out into the

During class one day the topic of Henrietta Lacks and her immortal cells, also known as HeLa cells.. The teacher told her class about how her cells where immortal but, couldn’t provide any other information. Skloot did further research but, couldn’t find anything. She didn’t understand why more information about Lacks’ wasn’t known even though her cells made amazing

Within the novel The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks written by Rebecca Skloot, Lacks and her family face many adversities. One adversity major mistreatment of Henrietta is while she's in the care of Dr. Gey. During her struggles Dr. Gey was removing tissue samples without informing Lacks his full intentions which was very wrong, but the arrival of Henrietta's cells proved to be vital in the advancement of the Science and medical fields. A sudden boom of new scientific research, and medical breakthroughs were now within in reach. One example of a major solution solved by HeLa cells was the expense of culturing cells, before Scientist would have to kill monkeys to obtain cells in order to run neutralization tests, this proved to be costly and

By using these cells, scientists succeed to prove Salk vaccine as effective which later helped to prevent the disease of polio. This is the reason why Skloot stated “Soon the New York Times would run pictures of black woman hunched over microscopes examining cells and black hands holding vials of HeLa”. (Skloot, 2010, p. 96) Also, HeLa cells proved to be more useful than normal cells in study of different viruses because they divided really fast. For that the author stated in the book, “HeLa was a workhorse: it was hardy, it was inexpensive, and it was everywhere”.

She was pregnant by her 5th child. after the birth of her child she could still feel something there so she went back to Hopkins where she was diagnosed with cervical cancer. There was a tumor on her abdominal. Without consent Dr.Hopkins scraped off some of the tumor and her healthy muscle . Dr.Hopkins later sent it to Dr.Gey a cell cultist who cultured Henrietta's cells which he named HeLa .

Skloot faced many challenges including her father becoming sick along with being accused of conspiracy, however she did not give up on Henrietta’s story. Rebecca Skloot did everything she could to find research and information about Henrietta and her family, she was even able to speak to some members of Henrietta’s family after much trial to get a hold of them. Rebecca Skloot was able to display Henrietta’s story from different viewpoints, helped Henrietta's family get ready for the book release, Made them aware of their platform they now would have and prepared herself and the family for any publicity and questions after the book release. Rebecca Skloot is in fact the very reason Henrietta’s story is heard today and her family now has a credible source for their voice to be heard

Along with that, the medical field had very few rules and was still unsanitary which was part of the problem with culturing cells until HeLa. There was also a lot of human experimentation at the time. In addition, there were multiple legal issues that revolved around this story like asking Henrietta for her consent when taking a sample of her cervical tissue for cell culture. They also never told her about the side effect of her cancer treatment about not having kids. Along with this, they started injecting HeLa cells inside of inmates without telling them what it was to see if they would develop cancer.

Later, when Henrietta’s genome was published, it sparked up more drama, because this too was unethical. “That is private family information,” said Jeri Lacks-Whye, Lacks’s granddaughter. “It shouldn’t have been published without our consent” (The NY Times). I believe that the continued use of the HeLa cells would have been ethical if the scientists were given permission. “It was a big moment, a hopeful moment, sitting down with the family and bringing so many years of research without consent to an end” (NBC News).

As dark and horrid as the beginning of the HeLa research program was, there was a come to peace and rightfully settling of human advancement through Henrietta’s ultimate sacrifice of life. Through Henrietta’s pain, agony and de-humanization if it wasn’t for her unknown personal effort, much impact has been made on quality of human intuition towards certain toxins, viruses and other illnesses. The HeLa cells has established a line of defense towards protecting any further harmful testing to be conducted on other living creatures such as animals and humans. Unknown illnesses and viruses can be tested against the HeLa cells to exemplify how a human body cell may take effect against harmful illnesses and viruses. Ultimately for the greater good, Henrietta’s family over the years could come to the consensus of peace and acceptance through her impact on scientific research.

The cells John Hopkins took from Henrietta’s tumor helped launch a multibillion-dollar industry, yet her family had no money (Monsen, 2011, p.2). “In the past sixty-three years several scientists have won Nobel prizes for research on HeLa Cells.” Henrietta’s genome wasn’t the first to be published. Unlike Henrietta, the other patients gave consent for the doctors to take samples (Barone, 2014,

Deborah “Dale” Lacks is the fourth child of Henrietta and David “Day” Lacks (Skloot, 2010, p. 14). Deborah Lacks was able to acquire additional information about her mother with the support of the author of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Rebecca Skloot, who reached out and identified her part of the legacy. Deborah became involved with the story of HeLa cells about twenty years later after her mother died for the reason that no one declared that parts of her were still active in existence. Though, she involuntarily became involved once her mother past away (Skloot, 2010). She agreed to meet Skloot on the ninth of July in 2000 to discuss Henrietta (Skloot, 2010, p. 233).

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks details the experiences of social injustice and humanizes a woman whose legacy has been defined by the power of her cells. Skloot seamlessly tells the story of Henrietta and her family’s struggle to come to terms with their interactions with the health care system and their mother’s story. In 1951, Henrietta Lacks, a Black woman from a rural town in Virginia, was diagnosed with an aggressive case of cervical cancer and treated at Johns Hopkins. During treatment, a tissue sample was taken from her cervix without her consent. The sample was for Dr. George Gey, who was able to grow Henrietta cells in culture and discovered that her cell line was immortal.

Bushra Pirzada Professor Swann Engh-302 October 4th 2015 Rhetorical Analysis: The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks 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.

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.