During her cervical-cancer biopsy Dr. Gey snipped samples from her tissue without the consent of the patient to run studies on the cells that were grown from the tumor. That is how Henrietta Lacks made one of the greatest contributions to medical studies today. Lacks cells were called “immortal” due to the fact that they divided unlike any other cells and scientists had an endless supply. With the discovery of the cells more studies, tests, experiments and research…
Henrietta Lacks was feeling sick 1952, she visited john Hopkins hospital for medical test. Doctors found out that she was suffering from cervical cancer. At that time a doctor name George Gey was working at the hospital, him and his colleagues were working in the lab trying to grow the first immortal human cell that could live outside the body and multiplies over time but they have been failing for years. While Henrietta was at the hospital some of her cells were taken without a consent and her tissue was going to change things when Mary, Gey assistant found out that Henrietta cell multiplied and she named it HeLa. The name HeLa comes from the first two initial of Henrietta Lacks first and last name.…
The blatant mistreatment of African Americans and other minorities had distinct effects on their families and lifestyles led by the racist facilities who withheld treatment and services, the degrading occupations they were given, and the attitude of people around them, all contributed to what generally became a ruinous lifestyle. The book, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot, tells the family history behind the famous HeLa cells and follows the mistreatment of Henrietta and her family over the years. Many blacks were affected detrimentally by the obvious difference in status throughout the nation, and rather than united, it was divided they stood. On January 29, 1951, Henrietta Lacks was diagnosed with cervical cancer at…
According to the book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot. Skillet discusses Henrietta’s background and mentions a place by the name of Turner Station which in the day was a steel Mill and shipyard this is also the same place that African American men would go if they could no longer find homes or jobs. In order to grasp a better understanding of Turner station we will look at the origin, what it was like back in the 50’s and what it is like today. Although Turner Station sounded like it was an old worn down community according to Skloot. To Begin, Jazzmen Tynes discussed the origin of Turner Station and how it is no longer open, rather, it is now considered a historic landmark in Baltimore.…
In the Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Rebecca Skloot first presents us with various descriptions about HeLa cells, such as “immortal” and “never dies”. Thus, these distinct attributes that tremendously prolonged the life of of HeLa cells make the cells become one of the most significant tools in medical fields, such as cancer treatment, vaccine development, etc. As a person who learned biology in the past, Skloot knew the facts about HeLa cells, and they conduce to the whole world; nevertheless, Skloot found that there was not a single trace about the background of the person who owned the cells and the sole information people know is her name, Henrietta Lacks. Driven by her curiosity about the origin of HeLa cells and Henrietta Lacks,…
When Henrietta was thirty, she felt a "knot" in her lower torso. She went for a check up and discovered that she had cervical cancer. About a year later, after a lot of pain and suffering, Henrietta died on October 4,…
Being overly dedicated to their work caused Grey Tilinde ,the man who organized the cell extraction procedures, to never introspect on Henrietta’s identity or what her opinion of the experiments would have been had she ever known about them. Instead they viewed the women as an end-supply of easily attainable test subjects. “…as Howard Jones once wrote ‘Hopkins, with its large indigent black population had no dearth of clinic material.’” This kind of attitude…
After her 5th child, Joe, she knew something was wrong with her body. At first she was hesitant about seeking treatment, but finally went to satisfy her curiosity. While there, doctors were quick to assume that her feeling ill was due to her history of sexually transmitted diseases, passed down to her by her husband sent her home. When symptoms continued, she examined herself and found a lump on her cervix. With her new discovery, Henrietta went back and convinced the gynecologist that she had something more than an STD.…
The women in the lab cut the cancer cells, placed them in test tubes, and placed them in the incubator. The next morning the women noticed that there was growth in the test tubes, Henrietta’s cells were growing at a great speed, they doubled over night. That day she cut the cell in half and those two halves grew overnight. Every 24 hours the cells where growing like crabgrass. It seemed like her cancer cells where unstoppable, as long as they had food and warmth.…
It is clear the Lacks family did not have much background knowledge of medicine and was also strong in their religious beliefs. The Lacks family portrays their religious beliefs through their reasoning for the creation of Henrietta’s immortal cells. They had believed this occurred so that Henrietta may continue helping people. In one scene, Deborah whispers to one of the vials that contained HeLa cells, showing her belief that Henrietta continues to live in the cells in spirit. Additionally, it seems their lack of knowledge of the subject of medicine as well as the possible lack of education given to them by clinicians, added to their anxiousness to both Henrietta’s case and even their own health and trust of clinicians.…
Scientists advanced the research on HeLa cells, refined the public’s knowledge her mother, and displayed the racial prejudice towards black people in hospitals. As the fourth child of Henrietta Lacks, there was a trait in Deborah that differed from her siblings: she cared about what happened to her mother. For two decades, the family was unaware that their mother’s cells played a major role in the the field of science.…
Before reading this book, I knew a lot already about the HeLa cells and what kind of scientific advancements came from them. But, even though I knew a lot about HeLa, I didn’t know much about Henrietta Lacks. It demonstrates that behind a lot of our scientific advancements, there’s a real person who made that happen. Especially in Henrietta’s case, where she was unknown until after she had died, it’s important for people to hear about her and to hear her story because she was unable to share it herself. It was a very good book, and I highly recommend that anyone entering into any health profession should read this book and learn about Henrietta Lacks, not just the HeLa…
She is a science journalist that did not believe in supernatural things. But throughout her visits with the Lacks family, she soon acknowledges the importance of religion and appreciates it more than before. Gary, the most religious one in the family, hands her the Bible and instructs her to read the passages; “In that moment, reading those passages, I understood completely how some of the Lackses could believe… that Henrietta had been chosen by the Lord to become an immortal being. If you believe the Bible is the literal truth, the immortality of Henrietta's cells makes perfect sense” (Skloot 296). She realizes that the Lacks family perceives Henrietta’s death differently than the doctors at Hopkins-by spiritually.…
On February 8th of 1951, the immortality of HeLa cells was discovered. Such breakthrough caused an outburst in scientific development and the release of ways to cure millions of diseases, including, but not limited to, polio, cancer, leukemia, and hemophilia. Following this further, Rebecca Skloot is able to describe the person behind the HeLa cells and the interminable process that she had to go through in order to attain enough information to write about Henrietta Lacks and her immortal cells. Skloot’s utilization of rhetorical strategies – the use of ethos, logos, and pathos – effectively engages and retains the reader in the life experience of not only Henrietta and her surroundings, but also in Skloot’s research journey on the lookout for unpublicized but highly valuable information. Skloot strived on finding and publicizing Henrietta Lacks’ life story, including those small details that not even her children had heard of before.…
Lacks was the perfect defenseless target because she simply did not understand what was occurring therefore she could not question what the doctors were doing to her. Ultimately Henrietta died from cervix cancer, however her cells that were taken from her did not die. They became known as HeLa cells and earned doctors billions of dollars without her family even aware that she was such an important person in science. After Henrietta Lacks died, doctors began to narrow in on her family to discover more about HeLa…