...HLAD 5337-VC01 Health Care Law Fall 2015 Professor: Dr. Lloyd L. Cannedy, Ph.D. Book Review of “The Immortal Life of Henriettta Lack” Student: Abraham S Lincoln “Henrietta Lacks, a young black mother of five children, entered the colored ward of The Johns Hopkins Hospital to begin treatment for an extremely aggressive strain of cervical cancer. As she lay on the operating table, a sample of her cancerous cervical tissue was taken without her knowledge or consent and given to Dr. George Gey, the head of tissue research. Gey was conducting experiments in an attempt to create an immortal line of human cells that could be used in medical research. Those cells, he hoped, would allow scientists to unlock the mysteries of cancer, and eventually lead to a cure for the disease. Until this point, all of Gey’s attempts to grow a human cell line had ended in failure, but Henrietta’s cells were different; they never died.” (USF 2013-14 Common Reader, The immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Pg1) The cells, called HeLa, became one of the most important tools in medical research, vital for developing the polio vaccine, cloning, gene mapping, and more. Less than a year after her initial diagnosis, Henrietta’s cancer was too much for her to bare, and the cancer took over her body. Because of her poverty she was buried in an unmarked grave on her family’s land. She was only thirty-one years old. Her family never knew, at that time that a portion small piece of Henrietta was still living...
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