Rebecca Skloot

HeLa cells are a unique strain of cancerous cells obtained from the cancerous cervical tissue of Henrietta Lacks, who perished to the disease on October 4, 1951. HeLa cells are unique because they are “immortal”. HeLa cells are immortal because they do not experience programmed cell death like normal cells would, allowing the HeLa cells to replicate infinitely without experiencing degeneration of genetic material. It is suspected that Henrietta's human papilloma virus and syphilis played a…

In Rebecca Skloot’s book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, racial stereotyping against minority patients is predominant in every aspect of health care. Many of these stereotypes in Skloot’s book painted blacks as unintelligent and vulnerable and led to many doctors taking advantage of their patients. Henrietta Lacks was one of these patients and unfortunately doctors made millions off of her cancerous cervix cells without her informed consent. Her cells, named HeLa cells, helped cure the…

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…

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…

had found out what was going on, they were furious. They had no idea what was going on, and they were flat out confused on the idea of the whole situation. Because of their confusion and uncertainty, Henrietta’s family “refused to talk to anyone.” (Skloot, 2011) Their family isolated themselves for years after Lacks passed away. If her doctor had asked for permission just one time, their lives’ would have played out so much differently. Instead, they had to live without closure. The only thing…

You would never think an innocent five year girl could be killed just by growing. I was that little five year old, and yes this story is true. I was over at my grandparents house when they realized a slight bump in my neck. They asked me about it, but I had never really seemed to notice it. My grandparents told my parents. My parents weren’t too worried, they said they would keep an eye on it. Over the course of time ,I was doing a lot of growing. I never really could tell when I was growing,…

It all started when a little girl named Kate was diagnosed with a rare, aggressive stage of Leukemia. Kate’s parents decided to have another child in hopes that their next child could be the perfect match to give Kate a bone marrow transplant. There addition to their family was a little girl named Anna. Anna went through numerous surgical procedures to help her older sister beat this form of Leukemia. Through many attempt to try and save her sister’s life, they realize there is only hope. The…

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…

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks will further the discussion formed with Days of Gold and consolidate students’ understanding of greed as a positive quality. This nonfiction story will also shift our discussion of money motivated greed to a new topic: personal status as a motive of greed. An important idea in the story is benevolent deception and the belief that doctors could legally keep many things secret from their patients especially if the patients were poor or a minority. Students will…