So a postdoc called Henrietta's husband one day. But he had a third-grade education and didn't even know what a cell was. The way he understood the phone call was: "We've got your wife. She's alive in a laboratory. We've been doing research on her for the last 25 years. And now we have to test your kids to see if they have cancer. " Which wasn't what the researcher said at all. The scientists didn't know that the family didn't understand. From that point on, though, the family got sucked into this world of research they didn't understand, and the cells, in a sense, took over their lives. How did they do that? This was most true for Henrietta's daughter. Deborah never knew her mother; she was an infant when Henrietta died. She had always wanted to know who her mother was but no one ever talked about Henrietta. So when Deborah found out that this part of her mother was still alive she became desperate to understand what that meant: Did it hurt her mother when scientists injected her cells with viruses and toxins?
In This Section In 2010, Rebecca Skloot published The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, a compelling look at Henrietta Lacks' story, her impact on medical science, and important bioethical issues. That book became the basis for the HBO/Harpo film by the same name, which was released in April 2017. Henrietta Lacks was a woman who unknowingly donated her cells here at Hopkins in 1951, beginning what was the first, and, for many years, the only human cell line able to reproduce indefinitely. Her cells, known as HeLa cells for He nrietta La cks, remain a remarkably durable and prolific line of cells used in research around the world. This guide addresses several important health care, research and ethical themes addressed in the book and in the movie. Johns Hopkins applauds and regularly participates in efforts to raise awareness of the life and story of Henrietta Lacks. We were proud to support the book research and development of the film by providing full access to the Hopkins archives and granting permission to HBO to film several scenes for the movie on the Hopkins campus.
Skloot's portraits of Deborah, her father and brothers are so vibrant and immediate they recall Adrian Nicole LeBlanc's Random Family. Writing in plain, clear prose, Skloot avoids melodrama and makes no judgments. Letting people and events speak for themselves, Skloot tells a rich, resonant tale of modern science, the wonders it can perform and how easily it can exploit society's most vulnerable people. (Feb. ) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Review The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks a fascinating and moving story of medicine and family, of how life is sustained in laboratories and in memory. Henrietta Lacks was a mother of five in Baltimore, a poor African American migrant from the tobacco farms of Virginia, who died from a cruelly aggressive cancer at the age of 30 in 1951. A sample of her cancerous tissue, taken without her knowledge or consent, as was the custom then, turned out to provide one of the holy grails of mid-century biology: human cells that could survive--even thrive--in the lab. Known as HeLa cells, their stunning potency gave scientists a building block for countless breakthroughs, beginning with the cure for polio. Meanwhile, Henrietta's family continued to live in poverty and frequently poor health, and their discovery decades later of her unknowing contribution--and her cells' strange survival--left them full of pride, anger, and suspicion. For a decade, Skloot doggedly but compassionately gathered the threads of these stories, slowly gaining the trust of the family while helping them learn the truth about Henrietta, and with their aid she tells a rich and haunting story that asks the questions, Who owns our bodies?
They hope to talk with the Lacks family to determine how to handle the HeLa genome while working toward creating international standards for handling these issues. The publication of the HeLa genome without consent isn't an example of a few researchers making a mistake. The whole system allowed it. Everyone involved followed standard practices. They presented their research at conferences and in a peer-reviewed journal. No one raised questions about consent. In the three years since my book about HeLa was published, the Lacks family and I have spoken to audiences by the thousands about these issues. Public response is overwhelmingly consistent and in line with several studies: the public supports the science and wants to help it move forward. But that support is dependent on consent and trust.
And who carries our memories? --_Tom Nissley _ Amazon Exclusive: Jad Abumrad Reviews The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks Jad Abumrad is host and creator of the public radio hit Radiolab, now in its seventh season and reaching over a million people monthly. Radiolab combines cutting-edge production with a philosophical approach to big ideas in science and beyond, and an inventive method of storytelling. Abumrad has won numerous awards, including a National Headliner Award in Radio and an American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Science Journalism Award. Read his exclusive Amazon guest review of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks: Honestly, I can't imagine a better tale. A detective story that's at once mythically large and painfully intimate. Just the simple facts are hard to believe: that in 1951, a poor black woman named Henrietta Lacks dies of cervical cancer, but pieces of the tumor that killed her--taken without her knowledge or consent--live on, first in one lab, then in hundreds, then thousands, then in giant factories churning out polio vaccines, then aboard rocket ships launched into space.
Summary Read a Plot Overview of the entire book or a chapter by chapter Summary and Analysis. Summary & Analysis Epigraph–Part 1, Chapter 2 Part 1, Chapters 3–7 Part 1, Chapters 8–11 Part 2, Chapters 12–14 Part 2, Chapter 15–17 Part 2, Chapters 18–22 Part 3, Chapters 23–25 Part 3, Chapters 26–28 Part 3, Chapters 29–31 Part 3, Chapters 32–36 Chapters 37–Afterword Characters See a complete list of the characters in The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks and in-depth analyses of Deborah Lacks, Rebecca Skloot, Henrietta Lacks, and George Gey. Main Ideas Here's where you'll find analysis about the book as a whole. Quotes Find the quotes you need to support your essay, or refresh your memory of the book by reading these key quotes. Further Study Continue your study of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks with these useful links. Writing Help Get ready to write your essay on The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.
The publication of Skloot's book led Johns Hopkins to review our interactions with Henrietta Lacks and with the Lacks family over more than 50 years. At several points across those decades, we found that Johns Hopkins could have — and should have — done more to inform and work with members of Henrietta Lacks' family out of respect for them, their privacy and their personal interests. We are deeply committed to the ongoing efforts at our institutions and elsewhere to honor the contributions of Henrietta Lacks and to ensure the appropriate protection and care of the Lacks family's medical information.
The cells from this one tumor would spawn a multi-billion dollar industry and become a foundation of modern science--leading to breakthroughs in gene mapping, cloning and fertility and helping to discover how viruses work and how cancer develops (among a million other things). All of which is to say: the science end of this story is enough to blow one's mind right out of one's face. But what's truly remarkable about The book ultimately channels its journey of discovery though Henrietta's youngest daughter, Deborah, who never knew her mother, and who dreamt of one day being a scientist. As Deborah Lacks and Skloot search for answers, we're bounced effortlessly from the tiny tobacco-farming Virginia hamlet of Henrietta's childhood to modern-day Baltimore, where Henrietta's family remains. Along the way, a series of unforgettable juxtapositions: cell culturing bumps into faith healings, cutting edge medicine collides with the dark truth that Henrietta's family can't afford the health insurance to care for diseases their mother's cells have helped to cure.