How Did Henrietta Lacks Use Ethical Testing For African Americans Unethical

Later, Mary Kubicek told the author of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Rebecca Skloot, that when she saw the polish on the deceased woman’s toenails, she nearly fainted. “I started imagining her sitting in a bathroom painting those toenails, and it hit me for the first time that those cells we’d been working with all this time and sending all over the world, they came from a live woman (Skloot, pg. 91).”

Would people in 1951 feel any different if they knew black people could produce lifesaving cures with technology? Henrietta Lacks was a black woman that got cervical cancer and went to Hopkins hospital because it was the closest segregated hospital around. While Henrietta was as Hopkins, they were doing tests and during that process, Dr. Gey took Henrietta’s cells without her consent. Henrietta was diagnosed with Cervical cancer doctors took samples without her consent. She had five kids and died at Hopkins hospital on October 4, 1951 being only 31 years old.

The book lays bare the painful history, what can be called as disquieting in present ethical views, on how tissue samples were obtained without consent and how the family was kept in the dark about HeLa cells for many years since Lacks’ death in 1951, which evoked questions and issues on privacy and ethics in the practice of medical and scientific research. Even so, during the that time it was not considered unethical to obtain living tissue samples from a patient without consent or to provide unauthorized medical

Ultimately, I contend that all multitude of instances that the Lacks family was taken advantage of set the foundation for Deborah to trust Skloot. Unlike the other news reporters, authors, or doctors that approach the Lacks family, Skloot made an effort to connect with the family by spending time with Deborah’s cousin cliff, and walking Henrietta’s tobacco fields. Moreover, Skloot was one of the first writers that aimed to focus more on the Life of Henrietta, instead of HeLa cells. When Deborah first accepts Skloot, Skloot realizes that the media completely perplexed the Lacks family. Despite everything that had occurred, the Lacks family still did not have a defined understanding on what HeLa cells actually were and what they were used for.

Skloot (the author of “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks”) later educated the Lacks family on the matter that was Henrietta’s

The media and scientific community are guilty of viewing Henrietta Lacks and her family as abstractions. Nonetheless, the central argument of the book is that the scientific community has an ethical obligation to respect the dignity, autonomy, and person-hood of all subjects and individuals with whom it comes into contact. Accordingly, individuals cannot be made into subjects of scientific inquiry without their consent. And, when objects of scientific study (including, for example, the physical material scientists use within a laboratory setting) are sourced from individual people, those individuals deserve to be made aware of such sourcing, and when possible they ought to be appropriately compensated. Therefore, you can see how the scientific

Jasmine Poole The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot is about a women who has cervical cancer that went to the doctor to get better. But instead of just getting better, the doctors took a sample of the cancer cells. The doctor used her cells to help other people with the same cancer get better. In this case, Henrietta and her family didn’t know that her cells were being sold all around the world to reporters/doctors.

The subjects that survived the Tuskegee experiment did not find out what was really being done to them until forty years after the fact ("The Deadly Deception"). All of this deceit caused African Americans to not want to trust white doctors and it is hard not to agree with them. Deborah, Henrietta Lack’s daughter, was afraid that researchers were doing something harmful to her mother and that is why she died (Skloot, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks [pg.186]). Deborah heard about the Tuskegee experiment and how supposedly the doctors were injecting the subjects with syphilis, and so Deborah was really paranoid about doctors and what they were really doing (Skloot, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks [pg186]). This sort of treatment and disregard for African Americans rights as humans leave them no other choice but to not trust science and medicine.

The Tuskegee study of Untreated Syphilis began in 1932, mainly designed to determine the history of untreated latent syphilis on 600 African American men in Tuskegee, Alabama. 201 out of 600 men were non-syphilitic just unknowingly involved in the study as a control group This study is known to be “the most infamous biomedical research study in the U.S history”. Most of these men had never visited a doctor and they had no idea what illness they had. All of the men agreed to be a participant thinking they were being treated for “bad blood” and plus they were given free medical care and meals.

The scientists dissociate the materials from the family not only so that they do not have to give money to the family of the donor, but also because the fact that amazing medical discoveries would have never been discovered if not for an African American woman’s cells, Henrietta Lacks. The only time when white people call the Lacks house is when they want something to do with the HeLa cells (Skloot). These facts are proof that the Lacks family weren’t paid for the use Henrietta’s cells because of their

Participation Portfolio 1 Asst 3: Henrietta Lacks Discussion Questions   Please answers each of the following questions, and be prepared to discuss in class   1. Please outline the history of Henrietta Lacks 's tissue cells. Who did what with the cells, when, where and for what purpose? Who benefited, scientifically, medically, and monetarily?

I presume that it would be ethically correct to provide a compensation to Henrietta Lacks descendants. I am aware that Henrietta Lacks cells enabled scientist to encounter new discoveries such as the polio vaccine and other. However, the benefits of her cells does not outweigh the fact that Lacks family deserved some sort of compensation. It would be ethically correct because the financial reward could have accommodated the needs of her family. In the article “Family of Henrietta Lacks gains some control” states, “When scientists and doctors crave the key to the genetic code that unlocked treatments and vaccines, two family members will have a seat at the table where the decisions are made” (Curtis).

Racism in The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks Imagine your mother, sister, wife, or cousin was diagnosed with cervical cancer and you believed the doctors were doing everything in their power to help her. Only later you discovered her cells were used for research without consent and she was not properly informed of the risks of her treatment due to her race. This story happened and is told by Rebecca Skloot in The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. Skloot use of narrative and her writing style enhances the understanding of the story. Henrietta Lacks was a young black woman who was diagnosed with cervical cancer at John Hopkins Hospital.

The origination of HeLa cells, used in biomedical research for a potential cure for cancer, had made many ground breaking discoveries in science; all thanks to one woman, Mrs. Henrietta Lacks. The history of Mrs. Lacks’s contribution to these studies raised many ethical issues concerning healthcare practice. In the short film, The Way of All Flesh, we learn how these cells were revealed by direct violation of ethical principles. During the 1950s, matters regarding informed consent practices were in their beginning stages of implementation.

An essential part of modern society relied on trust, especially the trust of doctors and scientists. People had the right to make an informed decision about their bodies and body parts. People had a right to their body parts, both attached and cell samples collected by doctors. The actions that the medical professions made will continue to affect future generations in both positive and negative ways. In the contemporary biographical novel, the Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Rebecca Skloot used logical opinions to argue about the importance of consent to reveal the lack of morality from those in the medical field which continues to persist today.