Why Is Henrietta Lacks Unethical
Henrietta Lacks also know by scientist as He-La. Henrietta was a poor African American woman who became immortal through her cervical cancer cells, regardless of all the ethical issues of these cells and how they were obtained in 1951, they have helped make incredible scientific advances. He-La cells are still used today for research and many other medical advances and treatments that a majority of us are exposed to, one of the main examples would be the polio vaccine. Regardless of all these amazing medical advances and improvements due to He-La cells her family was unaware what was happening for a number of years and could not even afford basic health care. We may take a step back and ponder as to why her family did not know and cannot afford
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Instead it was decided that these cells would continue to be secret and the family would remain in the dark while medicine and science evolved. This is yet another prime example where informed consent is avoided and there is nothing done to correct or compensate for these tissues samples that were wrongly taken. We do have to keep in mind that up to this point the family was in the complete dark and ultimately being taken advantage of. The Lacks were a low class, poor family, there were also African-American and had very little knowledge about ethics or even consent. These researches never planned to tell the Lack family about He-La cells and I believe that they used race to their advantage. Because the family was black, poor, and uneducated they figured they would never find out or argue that this was wrongful and consent was never given, because they simply ignorant to the entire situation.
There was only one instance in this book where we can identify consent; it is when Johns Hopkins calls the family to obtain blood cells to help further their studies about these quickly growing and evolving He-La cells. They obtain permission from the family to draw blood, but I do not think the family was fully aware of what was going on and what exact consent they were giving to these researchers. Regardless this was wrong to do and they were not fully aware of what they were consenting to when they were giving blood samples, much like what happened to their
Instead it was decided that these cells would continue to be secret and the family would remain in the dark while medicine and science evolved. This is yet another prime example where informed consent is avoided and there is nothing done to correct or compensate for these tissues samples that were wrongly taken. We do have to keep in mind that up to this point the family was in the complete dark and ultimately being taken advantage of. The Lacks were a low class, poor family, there were also African-American and had very little knowledge about ethics or even consent. These researches never planned to tell the Lack family about He-La cells and I believe that they used race to their advantage. Because the family was black, poor, and uneducated they figured they would never find out or argue that this was wrongful and consent was never given, because they simply ignorant to the entire situation.
There was only one instance in this book where we can identify consent; it is when Johns Hopkins calls the family to obtain blood cells to help further their studies about these quickly growing and evolving He-La cells. They obtain permission from the family to draw blood, but I do not think the family was fully aware of what was going on and what exact consent they were giving to these researchers. Regardless this was wrong to do and they were not fully aware of what they were consenting to when they were giving blood samples, much like what happened to their