The woman behind the HeLa cells, Henrietta Lacks, holds relevant today and forever. The unethical acts of the scientific and public health community lead to consequences that create a lasting impact on affected communities. Henrietta’s story and other immoral research practices have left a stain on the way disadvantaged groups view medicine, doctors, and public health. This stain will lead to a decrease in the efficacy of their healthcare and in turn hinder them even further.
Henrietta’s cells currently all over the world in laboratories being used to discover new technologies that will save even more lives. Scientists and researchers attempted to measure the amount of HeLa cells around the world, but the amount was always unimaginable and unbelievable. One researcher suggested the nearly massless individual cells would combine to “weigh for than 50 million metric tons- an inconceivable number” (Skloot 2). Another researcher estimated that “if you could lay all HeLa cells ever grown end-to-end, …show more content…
In any unethical situation, there could emerge a useful scientific discovery, but this is usually at a cost. The goal is to maximize collective good with out creating individual harm. Unethical practices will create distrust amongst an entire community. This distrust will lead to conspiracy theories and cause the affected community to avoid healthcare. In Henrietta’s story after the Lacks family was asks to come in for tests, “Deborah started wondering if instead of testing the Lacks children for cancer, McKusick and Hsu were actually injecting them with the same bad blood that had killed their mother” (Skloot, 2010, p.186). Johns Hopkins created a reputation as a dangerous place. Sick people would avoid Hopkins out of fear of getting worse. A Lacks family member, Bobbette, said, “I wouldn’t even go there to get my toenails cut” (Skloot, 2010,
Henrietta’s cells currently all over the world in laboratories being used to discover new technologies that will save even more lives. Scientists and researchers attempted to measure the amount of HeLa cells around the world, but the amount was always unimaginable and unbelievable. One researcher suggested the nearly massless individual cells would combine to “weigh for than 50 million metric tons- an inconceivable number” (Skloot 2). Another researcher estimated that “if you could lay all HeLa cells ever grown end-to-end, …show more content…
In any unethical situation, there could emerge a useful scientific discovery, but this is usually at a cost. The goal is to maximize collective good with out creating individual harm. Unethical practices will create distrust amongst an entire community. This distrust will lead to conspiracy theories and cause the affected community to avoid healthcare. In Henrietta’s story after the Lacks family was asks to come in for tests, “Deborah started wondering if instead of testing the Lacks children for cancer, McKusick and Hsu were actually injecting them with the same bad blood that had killed their mother” (Skloot, 2010, p.186). Johns Hopkins created a reputation as a dangerous place. Sick people would avoid Hopkins out of fear of getting worse. A Lacks family member, Bobbette, said, “I wouldn’t even go there to get my toenails cut” (Skloot, 2010,