"HeLa"

Maria Vazquez

Writing Workshop

19 July 2012

“HeLa”

Since the first chapter I read from this book “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks” I realized that there were many important points that the book covers such as healthcare, racism, ethics, class, and biomedical research. One of the things that captured my attention and took me back to the past was healthcare. I remembered different situations that my family overcame which made me realized that even thought that we are in a new century healthcare still a big controversial issue. Rebecca Skloot states that “In early June, Henrietta told her doctors several times the she thought the cancer was spreading…but they found nothing wrong with her” (63). This specific quote remained me of a recent situation regarding my sister’s health when she was misdiagnosed and she was in the hospital for several weeks. This also made me think that Henrietta’s doctor was sure that he did not find anything wrong had to more with a class and race issue.

Class and race was another important point address in these events took place in the 1950’s when white and black people had separate facilities. African American were discriminated and treated very different. One example is when Henrietta visited John Hopkins hospital she needed to enter the hospital from a black’s only door even though the Hopkins was “a charity hospital for the sick and poor” (15). I was very disturbed about her radium treatment and how it was done because I did not have this knowledge. However; in the 1950’s doctors did not realize that exposure to radium had major consequences. People that were regularly exposed to radium can die of cancer. Henrietta received only two radium treatments. Then the doctors gave an X-ray treatment. Another thing that I found quite interesting and disturbing was the way the doctor wrote comments in Henrietta’s medical chart. “Told she could not have any more children. Says if she was told before, she would not have gone through with treatment” (47). Someone could find this comment very unethical and even rude and dishonest. Because she had the right to know the consequences of the treatment she was going to receive. The doctors made that decision for her which is very unethical. She had the right to decide his future.

This leads to a new point in the story ethics. Ethics is one of the most important points in this book, because neither Henrietta nor Henrietta’s family were ask for approval to remove tissue from her during her operation. Someone has to authorize the use of any part of their body for studies even if it is a tinny piece of tissue. The treatments and technologies that were performed to some patients would not be considered ethical according to today’s standard medical practices. This leads to Skloot who specially studies and examines the exploitation of patient’s rights.

On the other hand, thanks to the removal of the tissue from Henrietta’s cervix contribute to the first cells grown in vitro. These cells call HeLa helped to the development of vaccines such as the polio vaccine. These cells were also exposed to toxins, radiation and infections such experiments were not possible to be performed in a living human. Moreover, HeLa cells were used to study the “immune suppressor and cancer growth” (58). HeLa cells were and are a very important contribution to science and to biomedical research. The controversial point of this was the doctors that successfully grew HeLa cells were making a profit from it and Henrietta’s family did not receive any money from this. For many years they did not even know that the HeLa cells existed. Henrietta’s family had the right to know about her cells being part of different studies and they also deserve a compensation for this because they were not informed of the sample taken form Henrietta’s cervix.