A Summary Of Benevolent Deception

Who was the worst in an ethical standard? Chester Southam, the tuskegee Syphilis Study doctors, Richard TeLinde, or George Gey? What took me as strange was one of these was seemingly sound in their ethics. After researching George searching for a kernel of guilt I came up empty by both the standards of their time and today. The ethical standard of his day in the medical field was to take care of the patient with minimal worry to them and learn what you can to improve your ability to care for others. The reduction of worry was due to norm of Benevolent Deception.
“benevolent deception was a common practice doctors often withheld even the most fundamental information from their patients, sometimes not giving them any diagnosis at all. They …show more content…
He as an inventor the moment “an idea hit him, he sat wherever he was at his desk, kitchen table, a bar, or behind the wheel of his cargnawing on his ever-present cigar and scribbling diagrams on napkins or the backs of torn-off bottle labels.”(Rebecca Skloot) resulting in some spectacular creations especially mixed with his scientific fixation on producing an immortal cell culture. For example “he came up with the roller-tube culturing technique...turned like a cement mixer twenty-four hours a day, rotating so slowly it made only two full turns an hour, sometimes less.”(Rebecca Skloot) in order to keep the cultures in constant motion similar to realistic conditions in the body. His fixation lead him to test as many cultures as possible combined with his cooperation with Richard TeLinde resulted in the production of the HeLa cell culture. He as a medical professional found that HeLa cells “could grow floating in a culture medium that was constantly stirred by a magnetic device, an important technique Gey developed, now called growing in suspension.(Rebecca Skloot) this allowed the mass production of HeLa cells. The ability to mass produce HeLa cell cultures combined with their superior weakness to the poliovirus and lower expense in comparison to monkeys allowed for the far less expensive research and creation of the polio vaccine. He even took the time to visit Henrietta Lack as said by Gey’s colleague at Hopkins Laure Aurelian “Ill never forget it, Aurelian said. George told me he leaned over Henriettas bed and said, Your cells will make you immortal. He told Henrietta her cells would help save the lives of countless people, and she smiled. She told him she was glad her pain would come to some good for someone”(Rebecca Skloot). Henrietta’s cells were taken by Richard TeLinde who was the person who gave Gey such an abundant supply of cellular tissue. As evident by “TeLinde began collecting