Book Review the Immortal Life of Henrietta Lack

In 1951 and African American woman was diagnosed with cervical cancer at Johns Hopkins Hospital, since it was one of the only hospitals that would treat black patients. During one of her exams, cells were taken from her cervix without her consent or knowledge. Little did she or her family know that these cells would go on to help make the polio vaccine, help to develop cloning, and gene mapping to name a few. These cells advanced medicine tremendously, but no one knew where they came from; only that they were called HeLa cells for her first and last name. Her family was also never told the significance Henrietta’s cells had, and received nothing from them. They couldn’t even afford healthcare themselves. Rebecca Skloot wants Henrietta’s story to be told, and the injustice or her family by not receiving any kind of compensation or benefit from all that the HeLa cells provided to medicine – especially since she had no knowledge or consent in the matter. She also portrays the strides made in medicine by using the HeLa cells, and just how important they were. One of the first major unethical events happened in chapter 3 when Henrietta went in for her first treatment. “But first – though no one had told Henrietta that TeLinde was collecting samples or asked if she wanted to be a donor – Wharton picked up a sharp knife and shaved two dime-sized pieces of tissue from Henrietta’s cervix: one from her tumor, and one from the healthy cervical tissue nearby” (Skloot 33). Although Henrietta had signed the consent form to perform any operative procedure, it states nowhere she consented to being a donor of her cells. Consequently, after Gey saw that these cells did not die in his laboratory, he began giving them to his colleagues. Chapter 8 is also a prime example of how black were unethically treated. Although Henrietta complained of further pain, the doctor ignored her and said he found nothing wrong. “This was a time when ‘benevolent deception’ was a common practice –