Seminar assignments - Book report on the immortal life of henrietta lacks & how it related to class PDF

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Book report on The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks & how it related to class...

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HLTH 4445 The Immortal Life of Henrietta Slacks Book Analysis Henrietta Lacks was a young mother of five from a small town in Baltimore, Maryland who was diagnosed with a severe case of cervical cancer at The John Hopkins Hospital in the 1950’s. Henrietta went in for treatment and without her knowledge or consent, her cancerous tissue cells from her cervix were taken. The cells then were given to Dr. George Gey, a scientist who studied cell research at John Hopkin’s. Gey’s mission was to create an immortal line of human cells, and with Henrietta Lacks’ cells he did just that. Henrietta Lacks’ cells were known as HeLa, which were used in laboratories everywhere in hopes of finding a cure for the horrible disease, cancer as well as many other diseases and viruses. Henrietta died less than a year after her first diagnosis, at the age of thirty-one. Henrietta’s husband and family had not known that Henrietta’s cells were used all over the world and that part of Henrietta was still alive. Years later, as author Rebecca Skloot sat in her biology class, she learned about HeLa and Henrietta Lacks. She became increasingly interested in Henrietta Lacks and wanted to know more. Skloot began conducting research in hopes of writing a book about Henrietta. She began by trying to contact and connect with family members of Lacks. She successfully made contact with many members of Lacks’ immediate and distant family, researchers, and most importantly Henrietta’s daughter Deborah also known as Dale. Deborah and most of the Lacks family knew little about their mother and the existence of the HeLa cells. Rebecca Skloot works long and hard to have a relationship with Deborah. Deborah’s need to know more about her mother lets her open her mind to meeting with Rebecca and slowly they became great friends feeding information off of each other. Rebecca and Deborah’s bond helps uncover more information for Rebecca and helps her gain more

information to write about in her book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. Skloot’s book helped to raise awareness about Henrietta Lacks, and gave Deborah and the rest of the Lacks’ a better understanding of their beloved mother, wife, and friend. There are many issues of ethics within the medical research in The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, but the one that specifically stood out was the issue of informed consent. The definition of informed consent is “permission granted in the knowledge of the possible consequences, typically that which is given by a patient to a doctor for treatment with full knowledge of the possible risks and benefits” (). Henrietta Slacks’ cells were taken from her without consent and have been used in medical research all over the world. Her family was uninformed about her cells as well, and when the found out they were angered. The health care industry was making millions and millions of dollars and the Slacks family received no money and struggled to receive their basic healthcare needs. The physicians failed to give The Hippocratic Oath and the Nuremburg Code were both supposed to be considered during Henrietta Lacks’ treatment. Both the Hippocratic Oath and the Nuremburg code focus on medical ethics and the problem was that they are not laws so they should be followed, but were not required to be followed....