The Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks Analysis

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.

When removed during her biopsy and then cultured without her permission, her cells began to reproduce rapidly and require more and more culture medium to consume as they grew. They thrived in the lab and they were the first human cells ever in history to do so. Meanwhile, Henrietta, 31, African-American, and a mother of five, continued enduring painful and damaging radiation treatment in the hospital’s “colored only” ward. After Henrietta’s death, her cells, named HeLa after the first two letters of both her names, went on to become a celebrity of virology, benefiting more people than will ever be truly realized. Scientists have grown about 50 million metric tons of her cells, helped sustain and build thousands of careers, and tens of thousands of scientific

When Henrietta Lacks died of cervical cancer in 1951, she left her five children motherless and alone. This includes one of her two daughters, Deborah Lacks. Throughout her life, Deborah never was able to meet her mother and knew of her only as an idea- a woman who died soon after her birth. After Henrietta’s death, she faded into old news and was hardly ever talked about. Deborah only ever wanted to learn more about her mother, going as far as harassing her brother, Lawrence, until he broke down into tears.

Deborah was struggling with her family, Zakariyya was in jail, and the discovery of their mother cells had been a cultural shock. It was by word of mouth that the Lacks family heard about Henrietta’s cells being immortal. It was 1973 and Bobbette was having a conversation with her friend’s brother in law. What happened was that he eventually told her that he worked at the National Cancer Institute and that he has been working with a cell from a woman named Henrietta lacks that died of cervical cancer at Hopkins in the fifties. After hearing about this new discovery, Bobbette relayed the message to her family.

In the “Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks”, Rebecca Skloot discusses two main issues of the medical research in the 20th century America, which are pertinent to people all around the modern world: class difference, especially racism and ethics of medical research, especially non-observance of consent. Racism is frequently addressed in this reading. Between Henrietta’s house and John Hopkins hospital, there were many reputable medical centers but she was not allowed to visit any of these because they were set up for the treatment of whites. Even in John Hopkins, there was a separate, inferior ward for colored patients.

Additionally, one should consider the effects of each character’s race during the segregated era in which the story is set. This factor would greatly contribute to one’s outlook, where although one’s race does not necessarily indicate their upbringing in terms of religious beliefs, it would be generally representative of the ethnic group to which one belonged. This is also exemplified through the interaction between Skloot and Deborah, where each woman’s race played an integral role in how they were raised, and therefore shaped how they thought about religion and spirituality as a whole. Whereas Deborah could explain each of the situations throughout and after her mother’s life as having supernatural backing, Skloot took a more rational approach and chose science to support her conclusions. This contrast also calls into question how each approach can potentially affect one’s resulting

This reading consisted of an excerpt from The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. In this excerpt the author has visited the home of the living relatives of Henrietta. They show distaste and skepticism towards her due to her being white and asking questions about their mother, Henrietta Lacks. However they seem to warm up to her and tell her about what had happened to their mother. Henrietta awas a cancer patient, and when she died the doctors had asked permission to use her cells, on the premise that it would help prevent her children from dying from the same illness.

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

Bobette, wife of Lawrence (Henrietta’s child), approached Deborah about the abuse. Despite this, Deborah was reluctant because, “Deborah never told anyone - she was afraid she’d get in trouble” (Skloot, 2010, p. 114). Skloot was able to provide perspective for the kids; she showed how the absence of a parent affects a family more than one assumes. Their experience isn’t synonymous with every experience with loss of a parent - nevertheless, it shouldn’t be ignored. A loss of a parent affects a child in more ways than one and provides entry of

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.

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.

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.

In an interview with Debra DeBruin, Ph.D., director of the University of Minnesota Center for Bioethics, journalist Erin McHenry questioned her about the ethical issues with the Lack’s HeLa cell case. The family never understand what all was going on. They were never told any information about what their family member was truly going through, they just knew about the cancer, completely uniformed about the HeLa cell discovery. The information on the cells was out of reach to the Lack family. It wasn’t until 2013 that the Lack’s family received some reimbursement for the Henrietta’s contribution to science when a European Molecular Biology Laboratory sequenced and published Henrietta’s genome without family

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