![]() ![]() Were you bothered when researcher Robert Stevenson tells author Skloot that "scientists don’t like to think of HeLa cells as being little bits of Henrietta because it’s much easier to do science when you dissociate your materials from the people they come from"? Is that an ugly outfall of scientific research.or is it normal, perhaps necessary, for a scientist to distance him/herself? If "yes" to the last part of that question, what about research on animals.especially for research on cosmetics? do you think Henrietta got the same care as a poor white woman? A well off any color woman? Faith. ![]() Do your body parts belong to you once they are taken out? Fairness. What were some of the big issues in this book for you? Ethics. What are the spiritual and religious issues surrounding the living tissue of people who have died? How do Henrietta's descendants deal with her continued "presence" in the world.and even the cosmos (in space)? What are the legal ramifications regarding payment for tissue samples? Consider the the RAND corporation estimation that 304 million tissue samples, from 178 million are people, are held by labs. using dialect/language to portray those voices?ĭid that technique, using people’s words and voices to recall events, make the book more readable? More believable? Could you see it done a different way? Was it important for the author to use the voices of the people she interviewed. What are the specific issues raised in the book-legally and ethically? Talk about the 1980s John Moore case: the appeal court decision and its reversal by the California Supreme Court.įollow-up to Question #2: Should patient consent be required to store and distribute their tissue for research? Should doctors disclose their financial interests? Would this make any difference in achieving fairness? Or is this not a matter of fairness or an ethical issue to begin with? Who did what with the cells, when, where and for what purpose? Who benefited, scientifically, medically, and monetarily? Her daughter Deborah features prominently here.Start by unraveling the complicated history of Henrietta Lacks's tissue cells. Then there is the story of Henrietta's descendants, the journey to find and build a relationship with them, the memories they share about their journey and the disrespectful way they were treated by researchers and media. Several cases of where doctors conducted experiments on people without their knowledge including those on black people, on women and on those at a Jewish hospital are shared. There is the extensive research on medical ethics, the history of medical research and cell culture. There is the story of how the author came to hear Henrietta's name mentioned and her desire to want to know more about her. There are several layers to this story and the author moves between them thoughtfully. Her life, cut short while just a young mother, really is the ground upon which this book is built ![]() By the title alone, I assumed this was mostly a biography of Henrietta. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks offered just that. I love reading on the lives of others, especially when they have something to teach us. Deborah was consumed with questions: Had scientists cloned her mother? Had they killed her to harvest her cells? And if her mother was so important to medicine, why couldn’t her children afford health insurance? Over the decade it took to uncover this story, Rebecca became enmeshed in the lives of the Lacks family-especially Henrietta’s daughter Deborah. As Rebecca Skloot so brilliantly shows, the story of the Lacks family-past and present-is inextricably connected to the dark history of experimentation on African Americans, the birth of bioethics, and the legal battles over whether we control the stuff we are made of. And though the cells had launched a multimillion-dollar industry that sells human biological materials, her family never saw any of the profits. Henrietta’s family did not learn of her “immortality” until more than twenty years after her death, when scientists investigating HeLa began using her husband and children in research without informed consent. Yet Henrietta Lacks remains virtually unknown, buried in an unmarked grave.
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