The Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks By Rebecca Skloot

About 60 years ago, before African Americans had much respect at all, there was a woman named Henrietta Lacks who was diagnosed with cancer in her cervix. Without asking for permission, Henrietta’s doctors took some of her cells from her cervix, and they took them to do more research on them and tried to grow them for the first time outside of a persons body. Because she was African American, she and the rest of her family were not respected by doctors, or many other people at this time. These cells later became very critical to medical advancements and scientific research for the rest of the world. But, the injustice of this situation raises a large controversy over whether or not this is justified.

Throughout the Rebecca Skloot’s book, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, she described her investigation into the life of Henrietta Lacks, her immortal cell line, the ethical violations surrounding her case, as well as the major contributions to modern medicine and research her case provided. During the time of Henrietta’s treatment, both medical and research ethics were quite different; many values such as autonomy, justice, and beneficence were not as enforced, and were applied differently throughout different institutions and individuals of different demographics. Though investigating her case and other important cases surrounding the use of HeLa cells, Skloot acknowledges the unethical circumstances which filled Henrietta’s case and

After her death in 1951, for six decades, the name Henrietta Lacks was not a recognized name in the eyes of the society, but cells containing her DNA did. HeLa Cells are the first immortal human cells, cancerous cells taken from Henrietta’s cervix never die, in fact they multiply every twenty-four hours. After spending 10 years to perfect her first book, author of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Rebecca Skloot encapsulated the life, the death, and aftermath of Henrietta Lacks’ life. Throughout her book, Rebecca Skloot takes the reader on an extraordinary journey through the lens of the Lacks family, dealing with controversial issues regarding science, ethics, race, and class. The journey of the Lacks families started in Henrietta’s hometown Clover, Virginia then progressed to the “colored” ward of

Medical Racial Inequality The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, a non-fiction book by Rebecca Skloot, shows the issue of racial inequality, most specifically, in the medical side of things. This book is a powerful narration of Henrietta Lacks’ life, death and everything that came after. Henrietta Lacks is an African American woman whose cervical cancer cells were taken in 1951 by doctors at Johns Hopkins. They were used without her permission or knowledge, which would then turn into the first ever immortal cell line that would be known as HeLa.

Intrigued by the story of the immortal cells, she sought out for more information on the woman behind the cells. After class, she went to her teacher and asked if he knew more about Henrietta but all he knew was her name (4). That is the event that started Skloot on her mission of justice for Henrietta Lacks. Since the, Skloot has done over a decade of research for her book, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. She talked to as many, if not all, living family members of Henrietta and she interviewed every doctor, scientist, journalist, and more possible.

In her book, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Rebecca Skloot reveals how Henrietta Lacks, an African American woman diagnosed with cervical cancer, was exploited by the medical community for the development of the immortal “HeLa” cells that have since become the most widely used cells for medical research and advancement from the 20th century to the present day. The HeLa cells have since led to the formulation of the polio vaccination along with groundbreaking research on diseases such as AIDS, gene mapping, in vitro fertilization, and possible treatments for various forms of cancer in humans (Zielinski). However, this breach of medical ethics in regards to removing Lacks’ cervical cells without her knowledge or consent has led to questions

Throughout the process of reading The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, there are a great deal of recurring themes that run central to the story’s plot. However, the theme of spirituality, which is often intertwined with the beliefs of the Lacks family, is one that captures the reader’s attention starting as early as the prologue. Even the author, Rebecca Skloot, provides a contrast between herself and Henrietta’s youngest daughter, Deborah, to illustrate how one’s beliefs can drastically shape his or her worldview. In terms of this particular story, it is important to take a closer look into how these faith-based beliefs interact with their counterpart of drawing conclusions based on evidence, thus introducing the question “How did level of

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks is a scientific biography written by Rebecca Skloot. I usually do not find myself reading this specific type of genre, but I found myself to really enjoy this book. When I first looked at the cover, I was not expecting to learn about a woman that has changed medical research forever. The famous picture of Henrietta with her hands on her hips made her look like an average woman that may have lived to be an old age. The first chapter confirmed that my assumption was incorrect and that this book consisted of the journey of an important woman that has allowed the medical field to achieve its accomplishments.

In this work of nonfiction, Rebecca Skloot writes about the life of a woman that unknowingly supplied her cells to scientific research. Additionally, Skloot expresses issues such as race, scientific methods, class, and ethics, that were raised by the HeLa cells. The novel commences with a quote by Elie Wiesel from The Nazi Doctors and the Nuremberg code. The quote follows “ We must not see any person as an abstraction. Instead, we must see in every person a universe with its own secrets, with its own treasures, with its own sources of anguish and with some measure of triumph”.

In “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks”, religious beliefs clash with science breakthroughs over HeLa cells. The Lacks family were religious however the author Rebecca Skloot is more in touch with science rather than religion. Although the Lacks family did not turn her away from science, they did open her eyes and inspire her to believe in something more than nothing. The family did not know much about science or HeLa cells, and the family was unsure about trusting Skloot because they believed she was going to betray them like the doctors did with the HeLa cells from Henrietta.

Had she refused, they would have been more likely to respectfully abstain from removing her tissue. Henrietta was only one of hundreds of poor, African-American women that visited Hopkins to

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.

What is Unintentional Becomes Valuable The novel The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, written almost sixty years after the death of Henrietta Lacks, was produced by Rebecca Skloot who, while researching, personally interacted with the family and educated them on the topic. After Henrietta’s death, her family is left with a great amount of confusion and dissatisfaction. Not only can Deborah Lacks, daughter of Henrietta, and her siblings not comprehend what happens to Henrietta and her cells, but an underlying pit of anger and fear within them deepens from not knowing.

It was a rainy day in Maryland, Baltimore when a colored woman quickly jumped out of her husband car and then swiftly rushed past the colored restroom, “the only one she was allowed to use”(Skloot 13) and into the entrance of the John Hopkins hospital. Upon her arrival, the women went straight to the receptionist desk and unhesitantly reported “I got a knot on my womb”(Skloot 13). After she was taken for a medical examination, the woman was then told to go home without any idea or clue that there was something deadly that was both growing and dividing on her cervix. The woman was known as Henrietta Lacks, and this book nicely depicted how a poor, uneducated African American woman was taken advantage without her consent and then became one of the greatest figures in the medical field. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks is a non-fiction research and biographical novel written by Rebecca Skloot, which depicted the life and the

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.