As the children matured, they became sexually involved. Tommy was raising other grandchildren, including David Lacks who was five years older than Henrietta.ĭavid and Henrietta shared the same bed. Henrietta was sent to live with her paternal grandfather, Tommy Lacks. So, he split them up among several relatives. There were nine kids in the family, and they were just too much for her father to handle. Henrietta’s mother died when she was only four, and life got rougher than it had already been. Throughout her childhood and adult life, she worked from sunrise to sunset on a tobacco farm. GradeSaver, 23 March 2017 Web.“The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks” by Rebecca Skloot is the story of a poor black woman who was raised in the South. "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks Summary". Next Section The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks Video Previous Section About The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks Buy Study Guide How To Cite in MLA Format Stewart, Amber. Skloot also gives an important voice to the Lacks family, and highlights ongoing issues in medical ethics around patient consent and the ownership of biological materials. Throughout these struggles, the Lacks family members often did not have access to medical care, despite the fact that their mother's cells revolutionized the field.Īfter teaming up with Henrietta's daughter, writer Rebecca Skloot attempts to uncover the truth about who Henrietta Lacks was. The Lacks family only found out about the significance of HeLA through reading articles that other people had written, some of them with intimate details about Henrietta's death. They also endured the attempts of doctors who wanted to draw their blood to study Henrietta's genome, writers and reporters who wanted to make a buck publishing their story, and con artists who wanted to use them to exploit the medical system. Instead, they struggled with her untimely death, as well as the structural factors of racism and poverty. However, Henrietta's family were never informed of their mother's contributions to science, nor did they receive any financial compensation. The cell line, known as HeLa (the first two syllables of Henrietta's first and last name) went on to revolutionize science. Because scientist had a very difficult time keeping human cells alive in culture, this breakthrough enabled scientists to test the effects of chemicals and new technologies on cells without harming human beings. George Gey, a scientist, was able to use this to create the first immortal cell line. Without her consent or that of her family, doctors removed a small sample of flesh. She developed cervical cancer around the age of 30 and was treated at Johns Hopkins Hospital. She later moved to Baltimore with her husband and had five children: Elsie, Lawrence, Sonny, Deborah, and Joe. She grew up in Virginia, where most of her family were tobacco farmers. Henrietta Lacks was born to a poor Black family on August 1, 1920. This would lead her on a whirlwind tour of twentieth-century medicine as well as the intimate experiences of one African-American family. After an offhand comment during a college biology class about the woman whose cells became the foundation for many of the medical advances of the 20th century, science journalist Rebecca Skloot became interested in learning more about the mysterious Henrietta Lacks.
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