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,
…show more content…
Classified as a scientific novel, the Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks depicts a variety of scientific knowledge. However, Skloot did not tell us the knowledge straightforwardly like giving …show more content…
One topic that I think is worthwhile to discuss is that whether doctors can take patient’s cell or tissue to do research or make profit from them. In this case of Henrietta Lacks, she signed the operation consent that allows doctors to conduct whatever procedure they think is essential. Therefore, Jones took some part of Henrietta’s cells and shared them with George Gey. In this case, some people might argue that without taking her cells the world will be completely different, whereas others will insist that this action lacked a clearly informed consent and violated the basic human rights. Another issue that I think is interesting to talk about is other people’s opinion’s on HeLa cells. In the book, Henrietta Lacks’ family was consistently bothered by people who wanted to ask them questions; her friend Courtney Speed insisted that Skloot cannot know the information before getting the Lacks family’s consent. From various examples from the book, I perceived almost every single person had a different point of view of HeLa cells. Some disliked them, while some deemed them important. Therefore, I believe that it will be interesting to discuss everyone’s personal standpoint of HeLa
Classified as a scientific novel, the Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks depicts a variety of scientific knowledge. However, Skloot did not tell us the knowledge straightforwardly like giving …show more content…
One topic that I think is worthwhile to discuss is that whether doctors can take patient’s cell or tissue to do research or make profit from them. In this case of Henrietta Lacks, she signed the operation consent that allows doctors to conduct whatever procedure they think is essential. Therefore, Jones took some part of Henrietta’s cells and shared them with George Gey. In this case, some people might argue that without taking her cells the world will be completely different, whereas others will insist that this action lacked a clearly informed consent and violated the basic human rights. Another issue that I think is interesting to talk about is other people’s opinion’s on HeLa cells. In the book, Henrietta Lacks’ family was consistently bothered by people who wanted to ask them questions; her friend Courtney Speed insisted that Skloot cannot know the information before getting the Lacks family’s consent. From various examples from the book, I perceived almost every single person had a different point of view of HeLa cells. Some disliked them, while some deemed them important. Therefore, I believe that it will be interesting to discuss everyone’s personal standpoint of HeLa