In 1951, doctors took samples from Henrietta Lacks’ cervical cancer and grew the cells without Lacks’ consent. These cells, the sales of which constitute a multi-billion dollar industry, are still used in thousands of experiments around the world.
For decades since Lacks’ death, her cells were grown in petri dishes by researchers who had no idea that the cells, sold by the vial, were taken without Lacks’ knowledge. The provenance of these cells, called HeLa cells, raise issues of tissue ownership, ethics, informed consent, race and class.
As cancer cells, they are immortal—that is they replicate and divide endlessly. In The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, author Rebecca Skloot brings to life the characters who played out this tale with no end: from Henrietta Lacks, whose death deprived a husband and children of her love and support, to the well-intentioned, but paternalistic physician who took the cells and grew them in culture, to the children of Henrietta Skloot who only belatedly discovered the indignities inflicted upon the memory of their mother, it’s a fascinating and moving tale.
Skloot weaves the threads of this story together masterfully. It’s a great read that will undoubtedly stir powerfully emotions in the reader. Add to the facts described above, the knowledge that neither Lacks, a poor black tobacco farmer, nor her husband or children received a dime from the sale of their loved one’s tissues, and it’s a tale that should stir outrage.
Skloot won many awards for her book, including the 2010 Chicago Tribune Heartland Prize for Nonfiction, the 2010 Wellcome Trust Book Prize, the American Association for the Advancement of Science’s Award for Excellence in Science Writing and others. Years after its original publication, the book still appears on a New York Times Best Seller list
Skloot was not content just to make money off of Lack’s story, she felt compelled to remedy the injustice done to the Lacks family and set up a foundation using a portion of the proceeds from her book to fund a scientific education for needy students, including members of the Lacks family.
http://henriettalacksfoundation.org
For more information about the author and the sequel to The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, check Skloot’s website: http://rebeccaskloot.com
Also check out the Lacks family website: http://www.lacksfamily.net/index.php
Read about the settlement reached between the National Institute of Health and the Lacks family regarding release of information about Henrietta Lacks’ genome sequence:
