Summary: The Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks

Henrietta Lacks was a Young African American woman who died of cervical cancer when she was only 31 years old. She discovered this cancer after feeling discomfort in her womb after having her daughter Deborah. She however did not seek medical attention and lived with it. A few months later though after her youngest son, Joe, was born, Henrietta began to have bleeding out of vagina at the wrong time of the month. One day she stuck her finger into her vagina while

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks written by Rebecca Skloot is a book filled with drama and ethical dilemmas. The book is broken into three sections which focus not only on the story of Henrietta Lacks, but the life of her family following her death. Part one, Life introduces readers to Henrietta and her family before she was officially the woman behind HeLa. In this section, it is discovered that Henrietta was born in Roanoke, Virginia, but due to her mom dying while she was young she relocated to Clover, Virginia. While in Clover, she fell in love with her cousin Day and they went on to get married and had five children. The Lacks children are Lawrence, Elsie, Sonny, Deborah, and Zakariyya who were all greatly affected by the loss of their

Skloot’s “Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks” documents of the story of Henrietta Lacks. The novel shares the story of how scientists collected cells from Lacks and created a human cell line that has continued to multiple indefinitely. Moreover, the cells of Henrietta Lack has enables discoveries and further research which has contributed to the fields of cancer research and gene mapping. The novel addresses the scientific story and exposes of the unethical practice of medical testing on African Americans; furthermore, Skloot bring the world of science, politics, and social justice to one common accord. A poor African American field worker, Henrietta Lacks died from cancer in 1951.

Rebecca Skloot, a scientific journalist, wanted to learn more about Henrietta Lacks. She went on a search for the family only to learn that they knew little about Henrietta’s cells. Even though Rebecca was warned that the family was upset about how the scientific community treated

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, by Rebecca Skloot, is a book about an African-American woman, Henrietta Lacks, who had cervical cancer in the early 1950s. Henrietta went to John Hopkins hospital, one of the only hospitals to treatment African-Americans, they derived part of her cancer cells from her cervix and tried to keep growing her cells for research to try and discover a cure for cervical cancer. They have tried this on many patients before, but Henrietta’s cells were special and kept growing, while the other patient’s cells would die. However, Henrietta Lacks and her family had no idea about the doctors taking her cells and medical records and sending them to other doctors around the world. In Skloot’s book there are many ethical

Using the life of Henrietta Lacks, her daughter Elsie, and the scientific research involving her cells, Hela, Skloot digs deep in order to uncover several aspects of unethical scientific research at the time. When Henrietta was diagnosed, she agreed to undergo treatment for the cancer, and had not thought it was that big of a deal. She did sign a consent form for the treatment, but she hadn’t known the form was giving consent for more than just the operation. The form she signed stated, “I hereby give consent to the staff of The Johns Hopkins Hospital to perform any operative procedures […] that they deem necessary in the proper surgical care and treatment of (blank)”

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, by Rebecca Skloot is a book that documents the author’s firsthand conversations and experiences with the Lacks family about their deceased relative, Henrietta Lacks. Henrietta had a unique type of cervical cancer, and before she passed away, doctors removed some of her cells without telling her. Those cells were later named HeLa and used to advance scientific research. HeLa also created a source of profit both directly and indirectly for scientists and mass producers of the cell line. In this book, the author aims to educate its readers on medical and scientific ethics, to argue against a researcher, scientist, or doctor’s ability to extract tissues from a person without consent.

Then he placed the samples in a glass dish.” (33). Skloot makes it painfully clear that others knew that TeLinde and Wharton were taking her cells without permission and still failed to say anything to Henrietta. Skloot also showed the reader that it was easy enough for a nurse or TeLinde himself to ask for permission. The rest of Henrietta’s family described her as caring, loving, and giving, making it unlikely that she would have said no to donating her cells to cancer research.

I think it is wrong to do with a person’s body or cells in this case without informing a patient. However, on a different note something great did come out of it. The fact that HeLa cells helped advancements in science is a wonderful thing I just feel it could’ve been done in a more ethical way. This was many years ago and I don’t think that there’s really anything the family could do about it but I still think it is important to learn

The book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot depicts the story of a woman named Henrietta whose cancer cells revolutionized science. Henrietta, a young black woman, grew up in the 1920s when Jim Crow laws divided the nation, making whites and blacks separate but certainly not equal. Believed to be inferior beings, blacks were not fortunate enough to have the things that white people were given such as good schools, high paying jobs and competent doctors. Black people had such poor health care and education that they believed anything a doctor said because they were lucky that they could even see a doctor. This willingness to listen to anything a doctor, or any white

Haley Traverse Mr. Wilkins English Honors 10 3/6/24 Meaningful Actions Heal Distrust In numerous types of relationships, often small, yet meaningful actions encourage closeness and vulnerability between people. In both the excerpts “Night Doctors” from The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks and “Food and Spirit” the authors show that distrust rooted in racial and historical differences can be overcome by small meaningful actions like sharing food, teaching each other, and telling stories. In The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, the author, Rebecca Skloot, has been on a search for information about the Lacks family to tell the story of Henrietta's life and cells. Due to the mistreatment from white reporters and doctors, the Lacks’ are very hesitant

As a preface to the first chapter of Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, author Rebecca Skloot introduces readers to a quotation from Elie Wiesel’s The Nazi Doctors and the Nuremberg Code: “We must not see any person as an abstraction. Instead, we must see in every person a universe with its own secrets, its own treasures, with its own sources of anguish, and with some measure of triumph.” This establishes a firm basis on how Skloot provides an analysis regarding the treatment of cervical cancer patient Henrietta Lacks. Furthermore, it contrasts with the views of the scientific community and media outlets—who in many degrees have presented Henrietta as an abstraction of sorts. These perspectives result in harsh consequences that limit the power of the scientific community well into the future.

Rebecca Skloot in her book uses scientific facts as well as dialogue of the family and others Skloot meets on her journey and with her family comes their views of how Henrietta was treated by the doctors at Johns Hopkins Hospital. When Henrietta was diagnosed it was the era of the Jim Crow South. In a time that was predominantly racist, African Americans weren’t treated with the most consideration. No researcher found it necessary to compensate the Lackses for using their mother's cells. The Lackses still show their frustration about how they have yet to be compensated for researchers using their mother's cells. Reverend Pullum, Deborah’s second ex-husband, answered her phone saying if Skloot wishes to speak with Deborah “‘they want to be assured

She explains that the law was behind on providing consequences for the atrocities that researchers were doing. In the novel, we learn about the Tuskegee syphilis studies where black men were injected with syphilis and left untreated for the sake of learning what would happen. (and their relationship to the story of HeLa cells), Chester Southam's infamous cancer studies and the more anecdotal stories of "night doctors" who allegedly snatched black men and women off the streets of Baltimore in order to experiment on them. Skloot is a science reporter and she explains that the advances in medical science have been revolutionary. However, she tells a story about the dark side of medical and scientific research, which has a history of racism, exploitation, and the objectification humans.

The Henrietta Lacks Foundation is a non-profit organization founded by Rebecca Skloot, author of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, who is donating a portion of her book’s proceeds to the Foundation. Henrietta was a poor black farmer whose cancer cells had damaging consequences for her family who today can’t afford access to the health care advances their mother’s cells helped make possible. The Foundation strives to provide financial assistance to needy individuals who have made important contributions to scientific research without personally benefiting from those contributions, particularly those used in research without their knowledge or consent. The Foundation gives those who