The Benevolent Deception: The Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks

The year is 1951, and the southern part of the country is completely segregated. Jim Crow laws are enforced to separate blacks and whites in a social perspective, as well as in social institutions. Life for blacks was complete hell. They were treated very poorly by white community members, as well as government officials. The incredible story of Henrietta Lacks and her eternal cells is not a story about racism. There are several incidents in The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks that refer to issues of racism, but Henrietta’s cells were not taken because of the color of her skin. Medicine in the 1950’s was no where near as advanced as it is now. Anyone that entered a hospital was a potential research subject. There was no such thing as signing …show more content…
Gone are the days when doctors withheld certain diagnoses or treatment details from patients.” (Argonin). Today, if a doctor were to take anything from a patient without consent, he would be sued by the patient, expelled by the hospital, and hated by many. It is morally and ethically wrong of someone to do such a thing without permission. Not to mention …show more content…
The United States Public Health Services recruited hundreds of African American men with syphilis and watched them die a slow, painful, and preventable death (Skloot, 50). The U.S government funded an experiment that tortured these innocent men. This was an act of racism. The Public Health staff choose these black men as research subjects because they were “a notoriously syphilis-soaked race” (Skloot, 50). How is that the government can allow this to happen? It does not matter if the year is 1920 or 2020, the government should not affiliate with research that is primarily occurring because of