Essay On The Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks

In The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks written by Rebecca Skloot, there is a debate over whether Americans should be hopeful for the future of healthcare or whether to be pessimistic about what’s to come. There are times where people can see both sides of the argument and it is understandable why people have different points of view based on the argument. In the story, we see Henrietta’s cells used as research and the information is kept away from Henrietta’s family. Even though by keeping the cells alive and hiding it from the family is illegal, there have been positive benefits by helping to find a cure for disease, medications and saving the lives of many people. We also see the Lacks struggling with affording healthcare, today we see
many different ways to help pay for healthcare. With all the new discovers happening and the future expanding Americans should be hopeful for the future of healthcare. The Lacks have had a huge secret that was kept from them. The day Henrietta died the doctors at Hopkins convinced David “Day” Lacks who was Henrietta’s husband, to let them do an autopsy on Henrietta’s body. By doing the autopsy the doctors said, it would lead to helping his children someday. What Day did not realize was this was the opportunity Hopkins had to collect the cells of Henrietta and use them for research. Hopkins took advantage of the Lacks knowing that they had no education so they didn’t understand the medical procedures or reasoning behind the death of Henrietta. After Rebecca Skloot went to the Lacks family, Day insisted he never signed anything to let them keep Henrietta’s cells. Day told Skloot, “Them doctors never said nuthing about keeping her alive in no tubes or growin no cells. All they told me was they wanted to do a topsy see if they could help my children” (Skloot 164). Even though it was wrong for Hopkins to take advantage of the Lacks and keep a big secret like that from them, it led to having positive health benefits. By keeping Henrietta cells which they now call HeLa it led to a vaccine and cure for Polio and it was for a great cause in searching for cures and diagnosis for other diseases. By doing research and testing cells scientists and researchers can look for new ways to create vaccines and discover to help improve people’s health, which can lead to great results for the future. Everyone deserves to receive healthcare, it is a right.
Unfortunately, there were many problems where people had a hard time paying for healthcare or even getting the chance to receive healthcare. The Lacks were one of the families who had a hard where they could not afford insurance for healthcare. Even though she had seen doctors, the doctors did not give her the proper diagnosis; they would have given other patients more information about a certain diagnosis to people who were richer than the Lacks. During the 1950s, it was the time of discrimination and it was hard to find hospitals or doctor who treated African Americans (Skloot 15).
While the doctors at Hopkins were examining Henrietta, there was a chance they might have missed something that could have helped her with her condition and as a result, her tumor she noticed grew bigger. “Either her doctors had missed it during her last exam which had seemed impossible or it had grown at a terrifying rate” (Skloot 17). At the time, it could be a possibility that they ignored some of the signs that Henrietta mentioned about her condition. Due to the fact, Henrietta is an African American during the 1950s; it is hard to see if the doctors paid close attention to her symptoms due to her
race.
There was also the struggle of them paying for insurance. After the Lacks have found out that HeLa cells were used to help many people, the Lacks saw that it wasn’t fair that they were not even receiving any money. Lawrence who is Day and Henrietta’s son mentioned, “Hopkins say they gave them cells away but they made millions. It’s not fair! She’s the most important person in the world and her family living in poverty. If our mother so important to science, why can’t we get health insurance?”(Skloot 168) Even though Henrietta cells have been making big changes in medicine the Lacks should have been receiving something in return. Unfortunately it is a shame knowing how much healthcare costs and other expensive based on medications and other procedures. Today there are different ways to help people pay for health care