ILHL summary ch 18-22 - The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks PDF

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The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks Chapter 18-22 Chapter 18: At this point we learn about the amazing discoveries made through HeLa cells such having the HeLa cells go out into space and the successful growth of the HeLa cells in space. Unfortunately, with these spectacular discoveries came setbacks. The biology labs started to notice that the HeLa samples were becoming cancerous even though they all had separate strains of the sample. The root of the problem turned out to be a lack of organization, which leads the government to intervene and ask to maintain an original sample of the HeLa cell to keep its purity. After some of this chaos had passed over, the research started gearing towards combining HeLa cells from other species such as chickens and rats. While these discoveries helped medical applications such as organ transplantation they also started to cause panic in the heart of regular US citizen. Chapter 19 Deborah, still 16, becomes pregnant; however, with Bobbette’s she manages to finish school. She eventually marries the father, but she finds out about his drug addiction and suffers from a physically and emotionally abusive relationship. The couple gets into a fight and Deborah stabs him, another night she throws him out. Eventually Deborah leaves him. On the other hand Jo ends up in solitary confinement during his military service and is deemed unfit psychologically for military service. After coming back, Jo ends up getting in a fight and eventually murdering his harasser. He runs away to Clover but ultimately ends up turning himself in and getting a 15-year sentence. Chapter 20 A researcher by the name Stanley Gartler, discovers that all the HeLa strains are contaminated and that they ultimately can travel through air allowing the strains to contaminate other specimens. After he shares his discoveries, the other researchers initially reject his idea, but after going back and testing their own HeLa strains they realize that their strains are indeed contaminated. This includes the samples set aside by the government in the ATCC vaults meant to be set aside to maintain purity. To be able to detect the impurities, Robert Stevenson creates a new genetic test to detect the HeLa tests. Chapter 21 Sonny Lacks eventually meets with Skloot; however, he says she needs Lawrence’s approval in order to discuss Henrietta. Skloot goes to meet with Lawrence, but he claims he doesn’t remember much of Henrietta. During this meeting Skloot begins to understand that while Lawrence doesn’t know of the many accomplishments the HeLa cells have allowed, he doesn’t truly understand what a cell is either. Eventually the rest of the family comes by except for Deborah; Skloot sees first hand their distrust of doctors as she hears their horror stories of Hopkins and the African community’s perception of the hospital. She also learns about how

they feel cheated by the use of Henrietta’s cells without their complete consent and fiscal compensation. Chapter 22 George Gey discovers that he has a tumor and in the name of science want it removed to become the new immortal strain of cells. However, they couldn’t use his tumor and so he goes through dangerous experimental Chemo treatments. Before his death he allows Henrietta’s name to be released as the origin of the HeLa cells. After her name is released Howard Jones realized she was misdiagnosed and instead had a much more dangerous degree of cervical cancer. He released an article with her name claiming her as immortal. As this is happening a war on cancer is declared and funding is growing for research, but the HeLa cells are still contaminated. And strains of contaminated samples in Russia were found creating media frenzy. Henrietta is finally famous....