...Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, used two major ways of accessing primary sources in her book: interview and observation. Interviewing most of the people who are related to the story was the main ingredient in her writing. Deborah, Day, and Zakariya are the most credible individuals who had been willing to share their own personal stories, about their mother, or other family members. For example, when Skloot met Deborah for the first time she said, ?See this? I?m the gray child cause I?m the one doing all the worrying about our mother. That?s why I wouldn?t talk to you this last year. I swore I never takin to nobody about my mother again.?[footnoteRef:1] The writer worked very hard to get first-hand information about Henrietta Lacks form her daughter. The other important way of accessing primary sources used in the book was field observation. Rebecca traveled many places to prove whether the story which had been told by the Lacks family is true or not. Throughout her visits, she mentioned in her book what she thought about a specific place or person and what she found during her entire observation. Rebecca Skloot described the Turner station when she was looking for one of the member Lacks family, ?Turner station is less than a mile across in any direction, its horizontal lined with skyscraper-sized shipping cranes and smokestacks billowing thick clouds from sparrows point.? [footnoteRef:2] Observation benefited the writer to compare how it looked back then when Henrietta was alive...
Words: 1730 - Pages: 7
...could be used to describe Rebecca Skloot’s nonfiction writing of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. Henrietta, wife of David and mother of four, had cells taken from her body without her consent. The Lacks family did not know this until a much later date. Henrietta’s cells are now referred to as HeLa which is the pattern of which most doctors used to label the cells they took from patients, willing and unwilling: First two, Last Two. This hides the identity of the patient. Throughout this memoir you will be taken back and forth between 2 points of view, the story of Henrietta’s life as well as the struggles Rebecca Skloot goes through to contact and speak with the Lacks family....
Words: 859 - Pages: 4
...you look. But imagine that you’re an African American woman in the 1940’s era who has health issues. In Rebecca Skloot's book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Skloot illustrates Henrietta had to face racism on a daily basis. Skloot does so by showing racism in restricted facilities, segregated facilities and economics. To begin, Skloot first brings racism to our attention in restricted facilities. For example, “ Hopkins was one of the top hospitals in the country. It was built in 1889 as a charity hospital for the sick and poor (15). Due to racism existing Henrietta had to drive twenty five miles just to seek any type of medical treatment. Another example that Skloot pointed out was, “There’s no way of knowing whether or how Henrietta’s treatment would have differed if she’d been white” (64). Due to racism and discrimination during that time frame we will know if Henrietta had the best care available just because of the color of her skin. Finally, Skloot emphasized the lack of health care Henrietta...
Words: 670 - Pages: 3
...A poverty-stricken, black southern tobacco farmer named Henrietta Lacks became one of the most valuable cells in life itself. Being stripped of having any knowledge of her beautiful yet shocking possession, scientists claimed them as their own and referred to them as “HeLa cells”. Not only did Henrietta not know about her immortal cells, she was also medically mistreated as well as her family. The Lacks family didn’t know about Henrietta’s cells by more than twenty-five years later meanwhile they’re still indigent. Medical assistance can jeopardize our entitlement to our own bodies which are absurd. Doctors have given ill-treatment to many other simple people like Henrietta. Patients like Henrietta have faced issues with informed consent because of doctors wanting to research and gain a profit. Racial discrimination plays a factor in the lack of empathy towards patients. In "The Immortal Life of...
Words: 976 - Pages: 4
...I read the book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot. This book is about the life of Henrietta Lacks, or as she is known to the medical community “HeLa”. This book caught my interest because I wanted to know why the doctors took her cells without her knowledge, and how the family members felt about “HeLa”. This black, tobacco farmer’s cells provided many vital tools and approaches in medical fields around the world. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks crafts for readers a life of a small town woman, working to sustain her family and friends and the affects her life(and how it ended) had on others, so that she is much more than some genetic example in a textbook reading. There is one quote at the beginning of the book, in the praises from other writers and magazines, made by Hilary Mantel that states “ No dead woman has done more for the living”. I think that this statement sums up The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks very well and is indubitably appropriate. The first part of the book is explaining how the author, Rebecca Skloot, came into contact with HeLa and the great lengths she went through to get together with Henrietta's family. After this Skloot delves into the life of Henrietta, through information brought forth by the Lacks family. Henrietta had gone the John Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, complaining of a lump in her cervix. Three months later she was diagnosed with cervical cancer. Unbeknownst to Henrietta, during a surgery to remove her cancer...
Words: 590 - Pages: 3
...assey Barbeau 11/10/16 Mr. Mooney The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks Essay Skloot, Rebecca. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. New York: Broadway Books, 2010 The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks is Rebecca Skloot’s debut monograph, and she has only written one other monograph since. Skloot attended Colorado State University, and received her MFA from University of Pittsburgh. Though she has only written two monographs, Skloot is the author of hundreds of essays and stories published in various magazines. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, written by Rebecca Skloot, tells the story of a young African American woman named Henrietta Lacks, who was diagnosed with cervical cancer. Though she was put through many painful medical treatments, Henrietta Lacks succumbed to her illness at the young age of 31. Unbeknown to Henrietta and her family, surgeons at John Hopkins Hospital had taken tissue from Lacks’ tumor, and sent the cells to be investigated by Dr. Gey, a researcher at John Hopkins Hospital. Despite the fact that many would consider this morally corrupt, informed consent had not yet materialized at this time, so there was no legal wrongdoing on the part of John Hopkins. Much to Dr. Gey’s surprise, Henrietta Lacks’ cells were growing astonishingly...
Words: 1758 - Pages: 8
...Do the Ends Ever Justify the Means? When I first heard about the book "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks", I thought it was just a reading assignment when I was in high school that I had to complete for a grade. As I began reading I became particularly interested in Henrietta Lacks and the HeLa cells. In "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks", Rebecca Skloot talks about Henrietta Lacks and how her cells were taken without her permission, and how her family suffered afterwards. Skloot shows how medicine and science were seen back in the 1950's compared to now. Henrietta Lacks was a “mother of five who died of cervical cancer at only thirty-one years of age” (Gabbay). When she passed away the doctors at John Hopkins asked her husband, David Lacks, if they could do a biopsy on her. At first he said no, but he finally told them they could go ahead. The doctors never told him or his family that they were going to take her cells and keep them. Nor did they tell the family that Henrietta's cells were growing at an incredible rate and were being shipped and bought across the world. “The existence of a constantly reproducing, or immortal, line of cells would permit an abundance of research that had never before been possible” this is what caused the cells to be coveted by doctors and scientist all over the world (Gabbay). “I have always thought it was strange, if our mother cells done so much for medicine, how come her family can’t afford to see no doctors? Don’t make no sense”...
Words: 1295 - Pages: 6
...Part 2 of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks focuses on the research done on Henrietta’s cells after her death. There were negative and positive impacts because of the research done on the so called HeLa cells. The Lacks family didn’t trust white doctors anymore because of the lies they had been told. Day initially refused permission to perform an autopsy, but he was deceived into believing that it would benefit his family. Society, at the time, didn’t see this as an issue. These 10 chapters in part two of the book have a lot of unethical experimentations performed because of the testing of the HeLa cells. The main point of the reading was to reveal to the readers how disreputable doctors were back in the 60’s because of how they treated black patients. All of this ties back to Henrietta’s cells as well. The scientific studies performed with the...
Words: 672 - Pages: 3
...The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks Henrietta Lacks was born into a poor African American family of tobacco farmers in Roanoke, Virginia in 1920. She was sent to live with relatives in Clover, Virginia after the death of her mother. She later married her first cousin, Day, in 1941. After the Great Depression and World War 1 the couple moved to Bethlehem, Maryland where there was a job opportunity for Day at the steel mill. Here they bought a home in Turner Station. Henrietta and Day had five children: Lawrence, Elsie, David (Sonny), Deborah, and Joseph. While Henrietta was pregnant with her fifth child in 1951 she noticed a lump in her abdomen. She was referred to Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland. Here she was diagnosed with...
Words: 1865 - Pages: 8
...standards of living and quality of life are highlighted throughout the book. Describe these differences and discuss what role social and economic inequities played in the lives of Henrietta, her family, the researchers and even the author of the book. The standard of living is a measurement which is used to measure the quality of life of the people who live in a country. Economists use it to compare geographic areas, (e.g. the standard of living in the United States versus Canada.) This measure can also be used to compare points in time. For example, compared with a century ago, the standard of living in the United States has improved greatly. The same amount of work now buys an increased quantity of improved products. Life expectancies have increased and racial segregation has been abolished. The divide between the rich and poor isn’t as great as it was a few decades earlier. The most popular method of calculating the standard of living is real GDP but this not gives an accurate measurement of standard of living. It normally requires considering additional measures. Nevertheless , the real GDP per person does tend to be positively associated with many things people value, including better goods and services , health, life expectancies and education”.(economics text book page 124) Henrietta Lacks was 31 years old when she died in Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, one of the few healthcare facilities that admitted African Americans. Prior to her death, cells from her tumor...
Words: 1371 - Pages: 6
...HeLa Sravani Venkatayogi(G01056367) Henrietta Lacks is an African-American lady from Virginia. In 1951 Mrs. Lacks was diagnosed with cervical cancer at Johns Hopkins Hospital. HeLa cells were derived from Mrs. Lacks cancerous cells. The tumor cells were unusually aggressive. They spread throughout her body, and she died at the age of 31. The doctor who treated her took the biopsy sample and sent it to Dr. Gey who was a researcher at Johns Hopkins. They cultivated the biopsy sample of Mrs. Lacks cancerous tissue in Laboratory without her knowledge. This was the first time scientists have observed cells which showed extensive growth, and they were immortal....
Words: 1787 - Pages: 8
...Introduction Exxon Mobil is an American company resulting of a merger from 1999 between Mobil Oil & Exxon Corporation. Exxon Mobil’s field of activity focuses on oil’s extraction, refining and distribution where it is one of the leaders. Exxon Mobil is also one of the largest petrochemicals producers in the world. It has 45 refineries in twenty-five countries with a distilling capacity of 6.3 million barrels of oil per day. It also has 42,000 service stations in more than 100 countries under the brand names Exxon, Esso and Mobil. The corporation has regained the No. 1 rank, in the fortune magazine, of the largest U.S. companies, dethroning Wal-Mart, the retail giant, with a turnover of 453 billion dollars. We are going to perform an Ethical Review of Exxon Mobil. As a first step, it is important to say that when it comes to ethics and oil industry everything already seems lost in advance. Since long the image of this industry is marred by various environmental disasters (oil spill on the coasts etc…) and many business problems that suggest that oil companies have blood on their hands. Following these disturbing facts it now seems essential for Oil businesses to regain a public image for stakeholders & all others. Indeed, a lot of these events have significantly harmed the Oil Industry. We will therefore study Exxon Mobile’s ethics based on its history, its ethics policy, its corporate board & key executives and finally through its ethical practice. ...
Words: 5137 - Pages: 21
...Higher Sociology Understanding Human Society 1 Acknowledgements SFEU (Scottish Further Education Unit) gratefully acknowledges the contribution made to this publication by Learning and Teaching Scotland who have granted permission to use material previously produced by Higher Still Development Unit. SFEU also thanks SQA for permission to reproduce parts of the Arrangement documents. Copyright statement Documents on NQ Online can be downloaded free. However, where the publications are the copyright of Learning and Teaching Scotland, educational establishments in Scotland may reproduce them in whole or in part provided that the source is acknowledged and that no profit accrues at any stage. Other users of these publications should contact Learning and Teaching Scotland before reproducing any of them. Please note all rights held by the former Higher Still Development Unit continue to be held by Learning and Teaching Scotland. Contents Statement of Standards 3 Guide to Learning and Teaching Pack 7 Introduction to the Unit and Learning and Teaching Approaches 8 Class stratification 9 Recommended reading and recommended websites for class stratification 10 Introduction to social stratification 11 Class stratification 15 Functionalist theory of class stratification 24 Summary of functionalism ...
Words: 19327 - Pages: 78
...Helping the Poor Helping the Poor Friendly visiting, dole charities and dole queues Robert Whelan based on research by Barendina Smedley Civitas: Institute for the Study of Civil Society London First published October 2001 © The Institute for the Study of Civil Society 2001 The Mezzanine, Elizabeth House 39 York Road, London SE1 7NQ email: books@civitas.org.uk All rights reserved ISBN 1-903 386-16-0 Typeset by Civitas in New Century Schoolbook Printed in Great Britain by St Edmundsbury Press Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk Contents Acknowledgements Authors vi viii Introduction: Hand-outs and Leg-ups Section 1: The Visiting Charity The Charity Organisation Society 1. The Organisation of Charity 2. Preaching the ‘Gospel of Social Reform’ in West London 3. The Fulham and Hammersmith Committee and Its Cases Section 2: The Dole Charity The Mansion House Fund 4. From West End to East End 5. Lord Mayor Aid 6. The Aftermath 7. Moralities and Mathematics Appendices Appendix 1 Applications for Relief Received by the Fulham and Hammersmith District Committee of the COS, November 1879 - October 1880 Appendix 2 The 27 Extant Fulham and Hammersmith Casebooks Appendix 3 The Charity Organisation Society by Miss Octavia Hill Notes Index 1 9 24 39 51 59 85 90 99 137 164 166 182 v Acknowledgements This book has been made possible by a generous grant from the Wincott Foundation. The author would like to express his thanks to the trustees. The research...
Words: 68635 - Pages: 275
...L3 Language Literacies Learning Harvard referencing guide UniSA This guide will help you apply the Harvard referencing style to your writing at UniSA. It is designed to help you understand the conventions and principles of this style and make decisions about referencing. There are many different versions of the Harvard style. This guide presents one consistent version for use at UniSA, which conforms to the Australian Government standard guidelines presented in Snooks & Co (eds) 2002, Style manual for authors, editors and printers, 6th edn, Wiley & Sons, Australia. Table of contents What is referencing? ......................................................................................................................... 2 How do we reference? ...................................................................................................................... 3 Sample extract from an essay ............................................................................................................ 5 What if your source does not match? ................................................................................................ 7 Harvard referencing UniSA examples ................................................................................................. 8 Print ................................................................................................................................................... 8 Book ..............................................
Words: 8716 - Pages: 35
