Devon Moore
Professor Dunbar
English 111
19 September 2017
Title
Cells that are known as HeLa are a line of immortal human cells that were developed from an African American woman in the 1950’s. They continue to be very well-known to the world of science today as they are still used. The HeLa cells are known for contributing to a lot of medical advancements. Scientists have now converted these cells into drugs to help create many different treatments for various cancers and diseases. Rebecca Skloot, sets out to tell the world the full story of the women behind the cells through her book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. In this book, Skloot’s primary goal is to humanize Henrietta Lacks, an African American tobacco farmer who died from
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Those medical records are some of the best sources about who Henrietta was other than those cells and little pictures the world has. The medical record that described Henrietta gave us an overview on her life. Henrietta’s medical record read “Sixth or seventh grade education, mother of five, occasional drinker, unexplained vaginal bleeding and blood in urine during the last two pregnancies, patient tested positive for gonorrhea (16). This information from the medical record was the best way to describe the life she lives, and the condition of her health. This allowed scientist to develop a further study on how her cells were created and how to properly act on them. This was the closest things to identify Henrietta to the world. Many people didn’t know what to believe Henrietta was, people didn’t know her name, her race anything about her other than she had immortal cells that could help prevent many things in the future. The records were a very sentimental item to Deborah: “‘No!’ Deborah screamed, wild-eyed, leaping up and diving onto the folder like it was a fumbled football, hugging it to her chest curling her body around it. I don’t know who to trust” running out of the room (239). At this point, Deborah is now in the middle of finding out information that she always wanted to know but never had the …show more content…
Lacks. This was yet another attempt to cultivate Henrietta to readers. There was a man name John Moore who had a rare and deadly form of leukemia and went through the same situation the Lacks family did. John later survived the cancer but would occasionally go back and get checked up with the doctor. During the process of his regular checkups, he later found out that they were using his cells for uses he didn’t sign for. Moore cells were being researched without his consent to later be known as Mo cells. Moore told a reporter” it was very dehumanizing to be thought as Mo, to be referred in the medical records as Mo: saw as Mo. After a couple years, Moore was given a consent form to allow them to research on the blood that he had given him. Moore states “I signed I do, you don’t want to rock the boat. You think maybe this guy would cut you off and you going to die or something” (200). A couple years later he realized he didn’t need to fly back where he got his treatments from, he could have been getting the treatment from his hometown. Compared to the Lacks family, the Lacks knew their mother didn’t give consent for them to be using her cells for research. Skloot gives this example to the readers to compare both victims and their families suffered from misuse of informed consent. Even though this happen to the Henrietta in the 1950s, John situation is a little more current in time, it
In the Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot, the author demonstrates the harsh realities that many African Americans faced in the medical and scientific field during the mid 20th century. The author shows the unjust practices of this time period through interviews with the Lacks family and medical professionals. These harsh realities are proven when Skloot talks to Henrietta’s family. Henrietta’s husband, Day, explains how they took samples from Henrietta’s body without consent when Skloot writes, “Day clenched his remaining three teeth. "I didn't sign no papers," he said.
Sasha Amos 07/27/2017 Rebecca Skloot tells a story on Loretta Pleasant also known as Henrietta Lacks, a black woman who had cervical cancer. Without her consent, her doctors took her cells and used them to create HeLa. The Lacks family had no knowledge of what Henrietta’s cells had done.
“The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks” is a book by Rebecca Skloot journaling the story of the title woman and how her “immortal” cells have impacted science. The book starts out with a word from the author Skloot, where she recounts how she got involved in Henrietta’s story. Chapter one begins with Henrietta going to the doctors at John Hopkins on January 29th 1951 to get tested for a “knot” she felt inside her. The 1st doctor she went to couldn’t identify the cause and recommended she go to John Hopkins hospital. John Hopkins was not only one of the top hospitals at the time, it was also the only nearby major hospital that treated black patients.
Henrietta Lacks was a poor black tobacco farmer,born in Roanoke, Virginia on August 1 ,1920.Henrietta’s mother died when Henrietta was very young, her dad did not wanted to take care of her and her siblings, so they were sent with different relatives. She grew up with her grandfather. Henrietta died at age of 31 years old of cervical cancer, on October 4, 1951. At the age of twenty-nine she felt a “knot” inside of her. In the year of 1950, she had a full-fledged tumor just three months after she had felt the knot.
Shortly after this happened Henrietta died from the cervical cancer on October 4, 1951. It wasn’t until two decades later that Henriettas name was released to the press, and it wasn’t until even later in the 1990’s when Rebecca Skloot heard of HeLa cells and was interested why there was so little information about her. Skloot then comes into contact with Henriettas family and most importantly forms a bond with Deborah, Henrietta’s oldest daughter. This bond with Deborah was crucial to find out information of Henrietta. While researching the bond grows and Skloot realizes that Deborah just wants to learn as much as possible about her mother like she wants too (Skloot Deborah really just wants her mother’s story to be told and people to realize that there is a person behind all the
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks overviews the story of a young black woman who dies a painful death duo to an aggressive invasive type of cervical cancer, something doctors were currently studying and developing way to combat it. Rebecca Skloot, the author, takes us to journey to see through the eyes of the Lacks family. Many would call what was done to them unfair, but as Skloot lets us know, this was common practice (and still is in many cases) during that time. The important thing was that the ignorance of who was responsible for the cells that we call “immortal,” the cells that have given us a “Rosetta stone” for medical research, is now diminish, this was especially important to the Lacks. The book focuses mainly on the story of Henrietta’s
A non-fiction book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot is about an African American woman who developed cervical cancer. While trying to diagnose her illness Johns Hopkins Hospital, got a sample of her tumor and sent to the culture lab. Inside the lab, George Guy harvests the cancerous cells that began to divide into hundreds of cells that became known as HeLa cells. The book is made up of hundreds of interviews that Rebecca Skloot accomplishes most of these interviews were of the Lacks family.
It was the first human cells to successfully be cloned. After that, HeLa cells have been used in various research. Some examples of research are cancer, AIDS, radiation effects, toxic substances effects, gene mapping, and many other scientific research. Today HeLa cells are still used for these researches, but mostly cancer research. In 2011, HeLa cells were used in tests of hepathine dyes, and other and other
The beginning of 1951 is when Henrietta Lacks visited Johns Hopkins, the only hospital in the area that treated black patients because she felt a pain in her womb. She was told she was pregnant. However, after giving birth to her fifth child, Henrietta had a severe hemorrhage. After many tests were run, a hard mass was found on Henrietta’s cervix.
She resided in Clover until she was twenty-two years old, when she moved to Turner Station, Maryland with her husband David Lacks and her first two children David Jr. and Elsie. For the duration of Henrietta’s life, she and her family belonged to a lower middle class of working black Americans. In 1951 when Henrietta felt a lump in her lower abdomen she sought out the medical care of the charity hospital, Johns Hopkins. In a pre-civil rights movement America, where segregation and demeaning of black Americans was prevalent in society, the colored ward of Hopkins was both the only place that would treat her and the only treatment she could
Today we expect our pharmaceuticals to be able to help us through any illnesses that we may be feeling, Henrietta Lacks is the woman who unknowingly gave a piece of herself to aid mankind. Henrietta Lacks was just like you and me, but was born in a time where the world was still evolving in science as well as racial standards. She grew up poverty-stricken and led a life of it as well. In the 1920s on up African-Americans didn’t have the rights that we have today, and that is a major concept to understand throughout this book.
As a classification of social stratification, “people are ranked on the basis of achieved characteristics, such as merit, talent, ability, or past performance,” (Ferrante: 186). In all societies, no matter the difference in how they deem class, doctors are always placed at the top and are known to be well-respected in all communities. The doctors whom took Henrietta’s cells without permission did so because they ranked higher in class than she did. With their title as doctors and hers as a poor black woman, there was no reason to have her consent. Henrietta trusted the doctor because he was a doctor; that rank meant something in society, however this ignorance is what brought about the ongoing struggles the rest of the Lacks family were forced to deal with.
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.
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.