week 8 Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

After finishing The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks I was ready to write the blog post except I couldn't decide if I should write the post I want or the post that is expected. being contrary by nature I am going with the post I believe in.

As I read the book I kept thinking how horrible it must have been for Henrietta Lacks, dealing with a medical system that didn't respect her as a person but only saw her as a cancer carrier. I felt horrible for her children who were abandoned to a sadistic monster and an indifferent father in a neighborhood without any support regardless of the family that was around which seemed to be more of a hindrance then a help through out the book. It saddened me to read how the Lacks family lived, especially Deborah who's mental health was questionable.

However, when I was reading the book I kept thinking and so what. What if the doctor who did the biopsy had gone ahead and explained to someone with out a high school education cutting edge science that few understood in that time and got her consent to do scientific testing since its unlikely she would have said no you can't do testing on my cells that might cure cancer. Based upon circumstantial evidence she would have signed or done what the doctor told her to do because she was in a charity ward in pain the last thing she would have cared about was what the doctor was going to do with the part of the tumor they took out.



The point that was made over and over was that millions were spent buying HELA cells, and the family got none of it. Well, the cells themselves wouldn't have been worth anything with out Grey's growing it and recognizing it? No, what would have happened is that Henrietta would have died of Cancer, her children would have been left in the hands of a monster and an indifferent father and all the horrible things that happened would have happened to them, but, science would not have advanced or done the research that they were able to or are currently able to do because of her cells. What did science do wrong? Not get consent, well the rules and the country was different then you can't take 2010 beliefs and hold 1951 actions up to them and expect the outcome to be good, if it was we wouldn't do it.



In the end I also found the book to be condescending to the family it was supposedly their story and she kept saying She wanted to learn about HELA and the women behind the cells. She also wanted something from the family, information and a story to make her reputation. Her reputation is well established by the hundreds of copies already sold. and yes she set up a scholarship to help the family and that was a stand up action but it doesn't cover for the fact that she wrote the story in a manor that makes the Lacks family look bad although if what was presented are unvarnished facts then there was no help for it but still, isn't the author just one more person to use Henrietta Lacks's cells for her own ends?