Henrietta Lacks Research Paper

In 1950’s Maryland, segregation was at it’s height-Jim Crow laws were in effect, schools were separate but equal, and the Klu Klux Klan had a mainstream following. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks tells the story of Henrietta Lacks, a black woman, whose cancer cells were taken from her without her permission. Though her lifespan only amounted to 31 years, the effect of her immortal cells will last an eternity. Although Henrietta was an African American woman, she received the best treatment available for her cancer at the time; however, her race affected her life greatly. Contrary to popular beliefs, Henrietta Lack’s race had little effect on her cells and the way she was treated in the hospital, in fact, she was given the best treatment that was available at the time. In an interview, Rebecca Skloot …show more content…
To this, she responds “Absolutely standard...They were taking cervical cancer tissues from any woman who walked into Hopkins with cervical cancer, and this was absolutely the standard treatment. And, in fact, it was considered the sort of top of the line” (Coates). Through this statement, Skloot makes a clear argument that Johns Hopkins and the doctors who treated Henrietta gave her the best treatment available, despite the fact that she was an African American woman. After her cancer was confirmed, the doctors also gave her radium treatments to fight the cancer, and when that course of treatment failed, she was kept in the hospital until her death to be cared for like any other patient at the time. This is also described in the book as being standard practice of the time and shows that despite the fact that she was in a segregated ward for treatment, her treatment was still equal to that of her white counterpart. Skloot also reveals that at the time of diagnosis, Henrietta’s cancer was misdiagnosed by her original doctor. She was originally