George Otto Gey

Medical Ethics and the Abuse of Power In The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot, we see how medical professionals can abuse their power when treating patients. Henrietta Lacks was an underprivileged, African American woman with cervical cancer. While visiting her doctors for treatment, cancerous cells were taken from her, harvested, and distributed to labs all over the world without her knowledge. She was treated during the 1950s when racism was at its prime, causing her to be…

Twenty-five years ago, two women, brilliant and brave women, gave a landmark speech on the AIDS epidemic at the 1992 Democratic National Convention in New York City. Elizabeth Glaser, who was one of the two women speakers had contracted AIDS from a blood transfusion, passed it on to her children, and would shortly lose her life to it in 1994 (Lucas, S. & Medhurst, M., 2009). Elizabeth, who during her speech, referred to herself as the “strange spokesperson” for such a group – was a well-to-do…

Henrietta Lacks has helped millions of people throughout the years and most people have no idea who this woman was or what her sacrifice did for mankind. In Zimmer (2013) and Radiolab (2010) we briefly learn about Henrietta, who is more famously known for her cancer cells. She was a poor, uneducated black woman from Baltimore who died at the age of 31 in 1951. She may have been an uneducated woman, however, she did no her own body and she knew something was wrong. She, herself was the first…

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot displays the controversy as to whether or not the public has a responsibility to support scientific progress at all costs. This controversy became evident after Henrietta Lacks’ cervical tissues were taken from her body without her consent and then her cells, which became immortal, were used for medical research everywhere and her family did not know about it. These cells have helped the medical field in…

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks In order to build a legacy, residues of one's existence must be passed onto future generations for the future population to inherit. The orthodox approach to build a legacy is accomplished through contribution to society. However, as time shifts, society's intuition towards the definition of legacy changes as well. There are various types of legacies, ranging from a pecuniary legacy to a reversionary legacy. In “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks” by…

Theranos was founded by Elizabeth Holmes, Stanford dropout turn creator of a multi-billion dollar enterprise, while the company goes against the ethical stance of Utilitarianism it’s actions can be justified with Kant’s moral position. Theranos was founded as a medical service that would be able to diagnose a patient with a variety of diseases with a simple prick of a finger. Holmes first came up with this idea while attending Stanford University, this idea was quickly shut down by every…

That family deserved the right to know what was going on with their loved one. Deborah, Henrietta’s sister, had one command when she spoke with Skloot, and that was to, “Find out what happened to [her] mother and [her] sister.” (Skloot, 2011) If Dr. Gey had only sat down and talked to Henrietta about the procedure they performed, he would not have had to avoid any legal issues or need to cover up and lie about the identity of Henrietta. If he had said something, the Lacks family would have made…

Henrietta Lacks was a woman who went into the hospital because she had a knot on her womb. The knot was a tumor and a biopsy was done and it proved it was cancer. While having her procedures the doctor took a piece of the knot and sent it to Dr. George Gey. Dr. Gey cultured her cells and they became fast growing and healthy. These cells would start new scientific advances that not many people had even heard of to that day. This was Henrietta’s story and how she became “immortal” from her cells.…

The Immortal Live of Henrietta Lacks is a book by Rebecca Skloot is about Henrietta an African American woman who develops cervical cancer as a result of her cancerous cells which will have a major impact in medicine and science. The book is base on the hundreds of interviews Skloot did to Henrietta’s friends and families. Although her cancerous cells did help scientists with the development of treatment. It also raises a hot topic if it was right for them to use them she they have as the family…

James Tanner The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks Timeline 1952 First immortal cells cultured. Collected from Henrietta's cervix. Named HeLa cells. Henrietta dies from cervical cancer. HeLa used to grow massive amount of cells. Prompt #5 Create a timeline that begins with the removal of Henrietta"s tissuse sample and traces the scientific and medical breakthroughs that have been made possible as a result of HeLa cells. Explain how HeLa cells were used in each situation 1953 1954 HeLa…