Monday, July 1, 2013

TILoHeLa BLOG #1



What factors (race, class, gender, “the times”) do you think were responsible for Henrietta’s cells being taken from her without her permission? What problems do you think were to blame for her family being kept in the dark about the many ways in which the study of her cells were contributing to medical science?

6 comments:

  1. Antonio Garcia
    July 18,2013
    Bridges Writing Workshop
    Blog #1

    In the 1950s American society still contained social equality issues where segregation and racism was a common practice. These issues are a basis for many of the issues that appear in The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, written by Rebecca Skloot. Journalists, Rebecca Skloot accounts the story of Henrietta Lacks’ life and the her own fascination of the events that took place. In Skloot’s story of Henrietta Lacks’ life she discusses the origin of the “HeLa” as well as the ethics and morals of the studies that took place on Lack’s cells. “HeLa” cells played a very important role in many medical break throughs such as the polio vaccine and led to whole new studies in science such as virology, yet Henrietta Lack, the donor of the cells remains virtually unrecognized in American history and media. The1950s was a time when segregation and racism was still very much present in American society which may have been a factor as to why Lacks’ and her family remain oblivious to the studies that were being to her cells, even well after her death. At the same time many scientific and medical feats were being made and it may be possible that in this excitement, issues that Henrietta Lacks and her family faced may not have been recognized.
    Henrietta Lacks is the decedent of African American slaves in America, and unfortunately with these circumstances Henrietta faced many hardships given that she was not treated as well as other Americans. Lacks faced unequal treatment in the hospital and in her medical treatment. A major factor for this was because of her education back round. Lacks and most of her family did not have the opportunity for a good education which was a major disadvantage for her. Skloot accounts that Lacks and her family always took the advice of professionals such as doctors and did not bother for second opinions or second thoughts. Lacks and her family had a “they know best” attitude towards the medical professionals given that they felt uneducated. This can be a why Lacks and her family remained oblivious to the “HeLa” cells and the studies because they did not challenge or question the medical professionals.
    Additionally, in the this time period many scientific achievements were made. It can be that proper protocol for tissue sampling has not been established. Many of the tests done on the “HeLa” cells were the first ever done. Skloot accounts firsts in; cell culture production, cell culture shipping, and cell suspension techniques. For all of these tests none of the professionals bothered to consider the social rights of the donors in this case Henrietta Lacks. In some ways the professionals over looked the means to which they made their scientific studies.
    Essentially the major factors that led to Lacks’ unfortunate events where the social problems at that historical time period. Lacks’ like many other poor minorities in America at that time did not have equal treatment. The scientific procedures can also be to blame because they did not include the rights of the patients and donors. Skloot’s account of Henrietta Lacks’ life should be a piece that all scientific professionals should be aware of. Her story can be something all can learn from to improve the ethics and methods of future scientific studies.

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  2. Blog Post 1
    Henrietta Lacks' time was one where her social, economic, and racial background had negative affects on her life. Lacks grew up in a small town and stopped attending school at a young age in order to harvest tobacco crops on her families farm. She had little education, and even less money. Henrietta and her family barely slid along harvesting crops that were sold for meager prices in little quantities at local markets. This lack of money and education played huge roles in the taking of her cells. Overlaying both of these factors, though, was the fact that she was African American.
    In the work, "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks" journalist Rebecca Skloot tells the story of Henrietta Lacks. During the time that she was diagnosed with cervical cancer, cancer research was becoming an increasingly popular field. Many researchers hoped to find a way to treat cancerous cells and growths. At the time, most cancer patients would spend a day with radium inserted in their tumors, assuming that the cancer had no ability to spread to other parts of the body. Dr. George Gey believed otherwise, and hoped to prove that cancerous tumors have the ability to spread. To do this, Gey needed to experiment with live cells which he had no luck growing in the lab until "HeLa" cells. Named from the first two letters of her first and last name, Henrietta Lacks' cells were the first to proliferate exponentially in a lab. This was groundbreaking in every type of biological laboratory, since it granted the ability to work and test cells the way they would inside of a human body. These "HeLa" cells grossed insane amounts of money and now hold great significance in many medical breakthroughs today.
    Unfortunately, these cells were extracted unbeknownst Lacks' permission. This goes back to the status that black women held in society at the time. Like many, Henrietta did not have the means to pay for treatment and her lack of education made it intimidating to question anything during her examinations. Living in a time where racial segregation was prevalent, I think Henrietta Lacks' was not respected by her caucasian doctors. They surely had some sort of consent necessary before live samples were taken, but this lack of respect for the black race-especially a black woman- may have kept doctors from thinking that permission was needed.
    In the same way, Lacks' family was kept in the dark about her mother's cells because at the nitty gritty of it- they were poor and black. As terrible as it may be, the inequality that African American's faced during this time prevented them from achieving any economic status. This in turn forced younger generations to work rather than go to school in order to survive. Moreover, their deprival of education kept them in the dark and for questioning anything. The historical times that the Lack's family grew up maintains complete responsibility for the cover that the medical world buried Henrietta Lack's and her family in. I hope that by the end of the book, there will be some compensation from the people that have put the Lack's family through hell and back. And that since then we have learned from her story to repeat every person, regardless of their skin color, wallet size, or academic background.

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  3. There are many factors that contributed to the cells of Henrietta Lacks to be taken from her without her consent and for the family being kept in the dark but the major factor was the lack of education.

    Henrietta Lacks was a female of African American decent, she was born on August 1, 1920 and diagnosed on January 29, 1951. In general, within this time period, medical science was not as advanced as it is now and there were mistakes made in present day simple procedures.

    When Henrietta arrived at Hopkins Hospital she expected help for the "knot" in her abdomen and she did received the only help offered to her. Not knowing that it was a treatment that would be out of the question today. As Rebecca Skloot in The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks describes, "Henrietta's tumor was the invasive type, and like hospitals nationwide, Hopkins treated all invasive cervical carcinomas with radium, a white radioactive metal that glows an eerie blue…" (pg. 31-32). We now know that radium is a carcinogen and that we would not want it near anyone without protection. But in that time doctors saw radium treatments as standard procedure. This was also coupled with the lack of laws protecting the patient from being told what was being done to her and why. Doctors were only in required to get a consent that was not law but part of their Hippocratic Oath.

    Henrietta's lack of education was part of the fact that she was from a low income family and that stemmed from the fact that her family is African American. "This was 1951 in Baltimore, segregation was law, and it was understood that black people didn't question white people's professional judgment. Many black patients were just glad to be getting treatment, since discrimination in hospitals was widespread" (page 64). That she was near enough by car to a hospital she could get help from is a surprise. As Skloot mentions African American patients were amenable because they were glad to be seen and get help at all.

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  4. Henrietta could have been part of my family. I think I could have been there and seen her wrestle with the notion and the pain of dying and leaving a family behind. I could have seen her painfully attempting to wrap her mind around the concept of the total and desperately profound silence that awaited her. Had I the chance to talk to her, maybe we could have exchanged deep and sincere thoughts regarding the irony of the location of her tumor. For it must be the definition of irony to find out that your death comes from the place where you produced so much life. What opinion would Henrietta have had regarding the taking of her cancer cells? Perhaps she would have declared that some compensation should be given to her family in the case that some benefit befell humanity on account of her donation. Maybe she would have refused the idea of having part of herself be the plaything of a stranger she would never meet. Or maybe, the people who took her cells didn't even consider that a poor black woman had the right to decide what would be done with the only thing that she really ever owned. Then again, I have heard that once upon a time, there were only white people. The rest were just the 'colored', but not people.

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  5. Surrounding the time of Henrietta Lacks’ death, there was an air of apathy and apartheid that was commonplace in virtually all aspects of life. Living in the 1950’s, the de facto segregation and mistreatment of dark skinned people branched out to affect a person’s life in various ways; in Henrietta’s case, it was with possessive rights and medical treatment. However, the fact that she was a “colored” person was not the sole reason for her mistreatment.
    The previously agreed upon protocols for doctors when dealing with terminally ill or severely ill patients at this time period called for information to be withheld from colored or lower-education people. This was done in order to prevent unnecessary panic in some patient as not everyone could understand medical jargon. In Henrietta’s case, this withholding of information involved collecting bodily samples from patients for research purposes, here being the cancerous tumor cells. Simply put, there were multiple factors for the doctors taking Henrietta’s cells without her permission, those being race, educational level, financial status, even the given time period to which all of this took place. This mindset was accepted nonchalantly during this time period, and it was even speculated by one of the main researcher’s colleague that Henrietta herself was happy knowing that her suffering was not in vain. This speculation, of course, relies on the notion that the head researcher actually visited Henrietta whilst she was on her deathbed. However, due to the mindsets at the time, privileges and rights of colored persons were negligible to many, and consent was often not necessary for obtaining bodily samples as they were seen as “payments” for even providing treatment to non-whites.
    As stated before, proper disclosure of information to minorities and impoverished persons were often neglected to prevent panic or pointless confusion. This in turn lead to Henrietta not being able to properly assess her situation as direly as it needed be, which would then mean she would refuse to show (much less tell) anyone how sick she really felt. The sudden onset of her life slipping away after incredibly dangerous radiation treatments put her family in shock, although still unaware of her real condition, much less the development of the HeLa cells utilized from Henrietta’s tumor cells. While this may have been a contributing factor to her family not knowing about the HeLa cells, there are multiple other possibilities similar to those mentioned earlier.
    Since a lot (if not all) of Henrietta’s family was not too well education or well immersed in the scientific community, there would be no way of the family knowing about the HeLa cells at all. Furthermore, the scientists may have been mindful of the possibility that the family would want Henrietta’s cells returned/disposed of in order to retain to whatever superstitious or religious belief that Henrietta has still not passed on. Simply put, it made too much sense for research scientists to simply keep the culturing of the cells a secret from the family in order to keep any discrepancies that would disrupt medical research, even if that meant disregarding the possible opinions and wishes that the family may have concerning the cells.
    Though I do feel as though medical research is of grave importance to humanity, I also firmly believe that we must not sacrifice ethical integrity and treatment of our fellow man, a mindset that was unfortunately not so famous around the time of Henrietta Lacks.

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  6. Henrietta Lacks was a young girl with little education from a poor family economically struggling. She grew up on a tobacco farm that her grandfather owned, she completed six years of school before she stopped attending and began working on the farm. The family somehow managed to get by selling the tobacco leaves in the nearby markets. In the 1950’s she was a typical African American girl living during a time when segregation was largely practiced.

    Before Lacks was diagnosed with cervical cancer she was hesitant to get a check up. She may have felt very intimidated by the doctors who where white and educated and the large segregated public ward. The African americans at that time never questioned the doctors and what or why they where sick or the procedures demanded of them. As Rebecca Skloot the author of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks mentions “ Like many doctors of his era, TeLinde often used patients from the public wards for research, usually without their knowledge. Many scientists believed that since patients were treated for free in the public wards, it was fair to use them as research as a form of payment.” (Page 29-30). Henrietta was taken advantaged of largely due to economical factors and lack of education.

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