By Rebecca Skloot
In 1951, and African American woman named Henrietta Lacks went to Johns Hopkins hospital to get a pain in her cervix checked out. She apparently had cervical cancer, which was treated by radium at the time. Her tumor faded, and she went home. However, a cell culturist named George Guy had collected her cells without her consent - typical medical procedure at the time. And her cells became HeLa, the first ever immortal human cells. It eventually killed her, but the cells grew and grew - far beyond what her normal cells had ever grown to - and they were used for vaccines and other research, leading to huge advances in science. They were also a problem. They grew so fast and were so hardy that they contaminated many other cell lines, causing a minor medical crisis because that meant some studies were nullified. This all happened without her family knowing.
After her death, her husband, Day, had signed some form that asked if "John Hopkin" could do an autopsy and collect some cells. He had no idea what that meant, but he signed it. Leading to a generation of hardship. The Lacks family eventually found out about the cells from a scientist friend who had been using them for a long time. They were infuriated that people had made money off the cells and they had never gotten a share. The men in the family tried to get money out of Johns Hopkins, but Deborah, whom the author of this book spoke to, just wanted to know about her mother and sister.
Her primary concern was that she had cancer, just like her mother. So when scientists came to collect blood samples to try to decode the Lacks DNA, she assumed that it was a cancer test - which didn't actually exist. When she found out she had been used again, she was furious - furious that her family was used just because they were Black, that no one had told them, and she refused to talk. The author finally managed to convince her that she wasn't a greedy scientist after years of coaxing, and together, they uncovered Henrietta's story.
Note: You may also find HeLa named as Helen Lane, which was what many people thought she was called after the cells first came out. This is factually incorrect.
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