...1) In 1973, Bobbette Lacks and Gardenias’ brother in law were meeting in the dining room of Gardenia’s row house in Washington, DC. The two began conversing and soon found out that Gardenia’s brother-in-law worked at the hospital that, unbeknownst to the Lacks family, housed Henrietta’s cells and was using them for cancer experiments. Later in the chapter at Yale University, researchers from Hopkins meet and discussed a contamination problem that manifested with the Henrietta Lacks Cells “HeLa,” Their solution is to ask the Lacks family for DNA/ cell samples to create and map of Hela cells. The lacks family is unaware that research has been ongoing with Henrietta’s cells and the only reason they need the family’s cells is to stop the cross...
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...who has legal ownership of cells and extracted genetic information has arisen since scientists began extracting cells for medical research. Since there has been interest in conducting in vitro studies, the issue of how cells will be obtained for these studies have been of utmost concern. With that comes the legislative issue of declaring who has legal possession of these cells. The most notable case is that of the HeLa cell line created from the genome of the tumor cells found in Henrietta Lacks in the 1950s. Henrietta Lacks was the unwitting donor of the cells that found significant new information and treatment of cervical cancer. She did not have...
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...The case with the California man is wrong for various reasons. First off, the patient was unaware that his tissues were kept after his surgery to remove a tumor. After signing a consent form that said they would dispose of the tissue at their convenience, why would he think any differently then it being disposed right the surgery. Not only did they keep the tissue without his knowledge, they knew prior to the removal that something was different within his cells. Though they did it for research to maybe cure some disease, the patient still had the right to know what was going on. They knew his cells could be very important and they were using the cells the potentially gain money and because of this the patient had the right to something. If the doctors would have just let the patient know that they were going to keep his cells, then he would have been treated fairly....
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...The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks raises many ethical issues with one in particular surrounded around informed consent. Moore v. Regents of the University of California (1990) was very similar to Henrietta’s circumstance in that Moore’s removed blood and bodily fluids became a cell line patented for commercial use (Menikoff, 2011). The HeLa cells from Henrietta have become the “mother” of many inventions and served as a foundation of a number of medical advances, including the well-known polio vaccine, among others. Despite her contribution towards great inventions in the medical field, Henrietta’s family, like Mr. Moore, were not aware of such contribution leaving them to believe they were owed compensation. The same demand for compensation could also be seen by the Havasupai Indian tribe against Arizona State University who agreed to pay $700,000 to its members due to improperly using blood samples for genetic research (2010)....
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...Instructor: Henrietta (Loretta) Pleasant, born in August of 1920 in Roanoke, VA, was an African American woman who was raised by her grandfather in a small cabin on a plantation. At the age of 14, she gave birth to her first child, a son, followed by a daughter four years later. She married the father of her children, her first cousin David Lacks, shortly thereafter. After having moved to Maryland for work, the couple had three other children. The last, Joseph, was born in November of 1950, and two months later, in January of 1951, Henrietta went to the hospital with abnormal bleeding. A malignant tumor of her cervix was discovered, and was treated with radiation therapy, which was ultimately unsuccessful. Mrs. Lacks died on October 4, 1951, at the age of 31. During the course of her treatment for cervical cancer, a section of the tumor was removed and sent to the pathology lab. While being treated with radiation, two more samples (one of healthy tissue, and one of cancerous tissue) were also removed without Henrietta’s consent or knowledge. These cell samples were given to Dr. George Otto Gey, a scientific researcher who had spent years trying to figure out how to keep cells alive outside the human body. In Henrietta’s cells, he found his answer. The cell line grown from Henrietta Lack’s sample, now known simply as HeLa, has been utilized in research and medical labs throughout the world since the 1950s. The controversy The case of Henrietta Lacks is unique, in that...
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...Medical experiments involving human subjects were extremely common throughout the 1900s and in many cases were highly unethical, one of those cases were Henrietta Lacks as well as The Tuskegee Men, also the Nazi Test subjects. Henrietta Lacks was used as a human subject for experiments when her doctors at Johns Hopkins took tissue samples from her cervix without her consent and attempted to grow and keep them alive. After she died of cervical cancer, these cells, known as HeLa cells, became essitenial to scientific research, contributing to developments like vaccines and other medical advancements. However because of her race and socio economic status, Henrietta Lacks was exploited by doctors, researchers and the media and treated as the largest medical experiment. A quote that supports this is “Hela cells were one of the most important things that happened to...
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...The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks tells the story of Henrietta, an African-American woman whose cells were used to create the first immortal human cell line. Told through the eyes of her daughter, Deborah Lacks, aided by journalist Rebecca Skloot. Deborah wanted to learn about her mother, and to understand how the unauthorized harvesting of Lacks cancerous cells in 1951 led to unprecedented medical breakthroughs, changing countless lives and the face of medicine forever. It is a story of medical arrogance and triumph, race, poverty and deep friendship between the unlikeliest people. There had been many books published about Henrietta’s cells, but nothing about Henrietta’s personality, experiences, feeling, life style etc. This caught Rebecca’s...
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...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...
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...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, and that small piece would change the course of healthcare...
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...Ethical issues: The main ethical issues in this case is that researches at Johns Hopkins Hospital used Henrietta’s cell in multiple researches and send her cells to other researchers around the world without her family’s consent. Moreover, the Lackes themselves were used in medical research without informed consent, and Henrietta’s medical records were release to journalists without her family knowing. These are issues because the cells of Henrietta lack were used to create “immortal” cells that provided a steady supply of cells for medical research and allowed to find cure for multiple diseases, and guaranteed the medical industry millions of dollar when her family his struggling to pay for healthcare. Moreover, researchers at Johns Hopkins asked the Lack’s family to give blood sample to test for cancer when in fact, the sample were used solely to identify their mother’s cell. The researchers never contacted back the Lack’s family, and some of them still wonder if they have the same cancer that killed their mother. These issues in this case concern the broad category of consumer confidence issues where employers and employees have responsibilities to their customers or clients. Johns Hopkins, a healthcare provider institution, and its doctors and researchers who are the care giver had responsibilities to their patient Henrietta and her family. In addition, the case is concerned with the specific are of fiduciary responsibilities, and client confidentiality and privacy...
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...The solution to Henrietta Lacks The Ethics and Legal Solution Natalie Smith May 26, 2018 Medical Terminology, Law and Ethics 2 After reading the book of “The Immortal life of Henrietta Lacks” a few years ago I was very amazed on how doctors back in those days just took bodily fluids and did experiments on patients without their permission. Since Henrietta was poor and doctors didn’t think it mattered if they took her cells it wouldn’t be any issues. Once they found out that her cells were able to be replicated infinitely in a lab they hit the gold mine of medical discoveries because they were able to find a vaccine for polio and breakthroughs in herpes, leukemia and even hemophilia and also were able to better understand numerous diseases that will help...
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...Henrietta Lacks was a poor black lady that worked in the plantations in the south. Without her knowledge, some cells were taken from her while she was at Johns Hopkins Hospital in 1951. She would become one of the “most important tools in medicine” (Skloot). Henrietta was born Loretta Pleasant on August 1, 1920, in Roanoke, Virginia. At some point she changed her name to Henrietta. When her mother had died in 1924, she was sent to live with her grandfather in a log cabin that had been slave quarters of a white ancestor’s tobacco plantation. While living there, she and her first cousin David “Day” Lacks shared a room. In 1935, they had a son, Lawrence (Skloot). Henrietta would’ve only been 14. In 1939 they had a daughter, Elsie, and married...
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...The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot, involves a great amount of various topics, from race, to gender, to cancer. A woman named Henrietta Lacks was an African American woman battling cervical cancer in the 1940’s until her death in 1951. As doctors tried to help her and find a cure for her, they had to study her cells and the cancerous cells. It was during the study of her cells that they realized her cells never died; in fact, her cells reproduced indefinitely. There are many ways to support the thesis of the book, exploring the ethics in medical research, and this book is relatable and significant to U.S. history involving medicine, race, gender, etc. The book, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, was written because the...
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...verify dialogue, recreate scenes, and establish facts she interviewed the Lacks family to see what was really going on with Henrietta. These interviews helped teach Skloot what Henrietta was really going through with the tumor also. On pages XIII and XIV Rebecca tells us Henrietta discovered this tumor because of the pain she felt. It was hard for the Lack's to cope with what was really happening. The impact on the decision to maintain speech authenticity during on the story helped greatly. Rebecca Skloot writing this novel closely depicted the relationship between Henrietta's family. Skloot wrote what was truly true which really helps the reader know that it was real. As they live, the Lacks excel but have struggles just like every other family. They are not ashamed of what they do and do not have although the lack of education made them struggle a little bit. Deborah learns about her mother she barely knew in this novel. Deborah also finds out the truth about her sister Elsie, she has a development disability. Elsie died as a teenager. If I found this same information about one of my family members I would be truly concerned. In would want them to be cured as soon as...
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...Phoenix Ethical Principles Paper Henrietta Lacks was born on August 1, 1920, in Roanoke, Virginia and she died due to complications of cervical cancer on October 4, 1951.She had been receiving treatment at the Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland. At the hospital she was treated with radium tube inserts, which is said to be the standard treatment for cervical cancer in 1951. As a matter of routine, samples of her cervix were removed without permission. Henrietta was 31 years old when she died. In this time it was customary for doctors and researchers to remove cells from a person for testing. Likewise cells were taken from Henrietta. The problem was that the cells were taken from her body without her knowledge or consent. These cells were later used to form the HeLa cell. The HeLa cell has been used many times over in medical research since they were removed from the body of Henrietta Lacks. The lack of consent in this case shined a light on the legal and ethical issues involved in medical research. On October 4, 1951 Henrietta Lacks died, but unlike others her cells did not die. Samples of her cells were removed from her body without her permission. During this time doctors frequently removed cells from patients without their permission or consent. Informed consent did not come into practice until the late 1970s due to another controversial case, the infamous Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment of 1932-1972. The cells taken from Henrietta are known as the He-La cell line...
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