In “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks” by Rebecca Skloot, the story chronicles the author’s search for the truth of Henrietta Lacks, an African American women whose cancer cells were harvested to create an immortal line of cells for scientific experimentation. The author tells Henrietta and her family’s story, including the backstory, emotional baggage, and more. Due to being mistreated by the media and scientific community. Skloot struggles to gain the family’s trust. The purpose of this book is to expose the issues of ethnicity and consent in medical research. In 1951, Henrietta Lacks obtained help for a “knot” on her cervix at John Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland. There, she was diagnosed with cervical cancer, and received radium and x-ray therapy. Through this process, some of the tumor’s tissue was removed, and sent to George Gey, the head of tissue culture at the hospital, where …show more content…
The scientific community wasn’t going to change that. They were trying to cover themselves, because HeLa had become a huge profit industry, and there was no financial benefit to the family. This was upsetting for the Lacks because of two main reasons. One, they thought Henrietta was somehow still alive, suffering through these different labs. Second, they felt exploited since other people were profiting from their mother’s cells while they were poor and could not afford healthcare.
Deborah works to uncover the story of Henrietta’s life, death, and immortal cells with Skloot's help. Through this investigation, Skloot also tells the story of immoral scientific experiments on human subjects and the law struggling to keep up with such issues. Even though she is a scientific reporter, usually enthusiastic about advances, the picture portrayed of the two communities is corrupted by exploitation, racism, and