As a Biology major, I had heard of the famous HeLa cells before and was pretty excited when I saw that this book was on the reading list. So far, I have not been disappointed. In many ways, I feel that the sciences are the ‘coldest’ courses of study; they are centered upon laws and theories and leave essentially no room for a more human element. In the first section of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Rebecca Skloot does a wonderful job of bringing the science behind the immortal HeLa cells to life by telling the story of Henrietta Lacks; a story that I believe should have been told much sooner than 2010, the year the book was published.
Perhaps the most striking theme of this first section is how different the practice of medicine and the field of science in general were at the time that Henrietta began receiving treatment for cervical cancer. For years I’ve viewed the field of medicine as black and white; nobody in our country is denied treatment, and doctors always do as much as they can to help their patients. Before reading these chapters, I was familiar with the laws of the Jim Crow south, but I was shocked to discover that they extended into the realm of medicine. It’s somewhat horrifying to consider the fact that only 50 years ago we provided only subpar medical attention to those of the African American race. The first example that we see in the book occurs in Chapter 1, when Skloot states that black people were often refused admittance to all-white hospitals, “even if it meant they might die in the parking lot.” Even when they did receive treatment, studies showed that doctors waited longer to treat black patients than white patients and that black patients were more likely to die while in the hospital. Henrietta was actually lucky in the sense that she was allowed admittance into Hopkins, but she did have to remain in a segregated ward.
When Henrietta finally begins to receive radium treatments, her surgeon takes a piece of her tumor and a piece of her cervix without her consent. These biopsies eventually become the source of the immortal HeLa cells, but it goes without saying that the method used to obtain them was less than ethically correct. Can we say for sure that Wharton, the surgeon, took the tissue samples without consent because Henrietta was colored? Was he among the hordes of others in the Jim Crow south who felt that African Americans weren’t even intelligent enough to make informed decisions? We will, of course, never know; but it’s certainly food for thought.
Numerous other examples of medical racism can be found within the first section of the book, such as the case of Henrietta’s epileptic daughter Elsie, who was forced to enter ‘The Hospital for the Negro Insane.” The most blatant example of racism, however, can be found in the phone conversation that the author has with Roland Pattillo. When Pattillo asks her what she knows about African Americans and science, Skloot launches into a discussion of the infamous Tuskegee syphilis study, in which hundreds of black men died, and of the countless unnecessary hysterectomies preformed in Mississippi, partly to stop the spread of an “inferior race.” Cases like these are deplorable, and are an enormous blight on the history of science.
The subject of racism in medicine really deserves its own paper rather than a simple blog post; but I can definitely say that the first section of Henrietta Lacks has been eye-opening in this regard.
Wow! What an interesting read! Thus far, as Andrea mentioned, "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks" has been eye-opening to say the least. Beyond the fact that this idea of HeLa cells amazes me as I am not at all a scientist, I have been shocked by the unethical practices that take place within the first section of the book.
Though research ethics is still very much an issue today, it is incredible how far we have come. I was shocked by the horridly unethical practices revealed on pages 29 and 30, stating that "TeLinde often used patients from the public wards for research, usually without their knowledge" and "TeLinde began collecting samples from any woman who happened to walk into Hopkins with cervical cancer." Mary and Margaret also collected umbilical cord blood after babies were born at Hopkins (36), yet again, with no consent. Such practices were so commonplace, that after the HeLa cells began multiplying, George's colleagues immediately asked for a share of the multiplying cells of this living woman (41). And of course, George agreed--still with no consent.
I have to agree with Andrea that these already common unethical practices were heightened in Henrietta's case due to the Jim Crow laws. The racial tension is first seen as Henrietta has to drive twenty miles to reach "the only major hospital for miles that treated black patients." (15) Due to her race and "chart" as detailed on page 16, I surmise that TeLinde had very little respect for Henrietta and did not think twice about collecting a sample of her cervical cancer.
"The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks" is such a seemingly surreal story. How ironic that her cells "transformed modern medicine" (75), WITHOUT HER CONSENT.
With not only next to no science background, but also an extreme distaste of the subject as a whole, I expected myself to also have distaste for this book. However, I find this book to be a fascinating and enjoyable read. Having never heard of Hela cells before, I now feel like I possess a good grasp of what they are, how they work and what exactly makes them remarkable.
What struck me the most about this section of the novel was the stories of the things done to poor African Americans in the name of science, such as the shocking syphilis study described. Scientists wanted to study the progression of syphilis and how it killed from start to finish and they would do this by offering a free meal and ride into town to poor African American men (a population in which syphilis was a serious problem) and observe the disease as it progressed. Doctors watching a poor uneducated population die of a perfectly disease is appallingly unethical. Regardless of what medical advances are made and the number of lives saved, there is no justification for allowing someone to die from something you can prevent.
This book, as both Karlie and Andrea have already mentioned has been truly eye opening and raised many ethical questions about race relations, views of superiority and a doctors responsibility.
The first part of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks has been vastly interesting and extremely informative for me. I had actually never heard of the HeLa cells before and therefore had no idea what the book was about before I began reading. Some of the most striking details thus far have been the descriptions of the kind of poverty Henrietta and her family lived in as children and the accounts of her various visits to Johns Hopkins medical clinic for cancer treatment.
The poverty she and her family lived in was amazing to me not just because of the obvious hardships they had to deal with, but because of the way in which they handled it. They didn’t know any other life, and therefore they made due with what they had and the situations they were given. The integrity and strength with which Henrietta dealt with her daily tasks and sometimes miserable situations astounded me. “They didn’t go on a honeymoon because there was too much work to do...So after their wedding, Day went back to gripping the splintered ends of his old wooden plow as Henrietta followed close behind, pushing a homemade wheelbarrow and dropping tobacco seedlings into holes in the freshly turned red dirt” (24). She never lost this characteristic, as we can see from her perseverance and calm attitude even while getting radiation treatment for her cervical cancer. “After each treatment, Henrietta would change back into her clothes and walk the few blocks to Margaret’s house, where she’d wait for Day to pick her up around midnight” (47). She did what she had to do despite probable discomfort and fear due to her condition.
The treatment Henrietta received was probably quite up to date for the time in which she was living, but the way in which the doctors treated her as though she were less than an adult woman or patient is what is disturbing. The most obvious examples of this include the doctor’s taking a sample of her tumor and giving it to George Gey without Henrietta’s permission and his performing treatments which caused her to no longer be child-bearing without consulting or informing her beforehand. “Until that moment, Henrietta didn’t know that the treatments had left her infertile” (47). The usual practice was to let patients know about these kinds of procedures before performing them. “The psychic effect of hysterectomy, especially on the young, is considerable, and it should not be done without a thorough understanding on the part of the patient [who is] entitled to a simple explanation of the facts [including] loss of the reproductive function” (47). However, Henrietta was not given the same consideration. There is later mention that she would not have allowed the procedures if she had known they would make her no longer able to bear children. While this is quite predictable from her earlier refusals of various treatments, the choice should have been given to her...and it was not. While it’s impossible to be completely sure, this probably had something to do with the fact that she was a poor, black woman and she wouldn’t be able to do much about it.
I’ve really enjoyed the book thus far and I look forward to seeing the rest of the story unfold and learning more about the woman behind the legendary HeLa cells.
As you guys have been saying, some of the medical practices shocked and horrified me—especially the one you highlighted, Holly, about the syphilis study. It was also horrifying for me to learn that Carrel, who supposedly had similar type of HeLa cells but with a chicken heart, was a Nazi sympathizer and collaborator who wanted to use his research to create the master race. I don’t like the idea that they took Henrietta Lack’s cells without her knowledge. They should have asked her permission. In fact, I can’t imagine that she wouldn’t give them her permission if they had just asked. What I don’t understand yet in the reading of this book, however, is what exactly the family wants. Do they deserve part of the money that someone made on these cells? (I don’t even know yet if anyone made money on these cells. At this point Guy is just using them for research, and is freely—in both senses of the word—giving them out to whatever scientist wants them.) So far the cells are being used for pure research. And so far, it seems to me like John Hopkins treated Lacks very well, other than not asking her permission. Very unlike the syphilis case, it seems like the doctors at Hopkins did everything they could to cure Lacks’ cancer. It was simply beyond them. They didn’t put her life at risk or anything like that. They didn’t withhold treatment. They’re using her cells for a good reason. This doesn’t justify their not asking for her permission, but I don’t exactly see it as a horrifying unforgivable sin either. Would they have asked a white woman for her permission either? Would they even have asked a white man for permission in the same circumstances? I’m not sure they were thinking about human cells for research in terms of “owning” like maybe we would now. I’m also not sure of what the family wants from all this. If the Lacks’s had known they were taking her cells and then had later known how important they were, would they deserve to get some of the money that people might get for it? I feel very sorry for this family who has, like so many African Americans, been abused by the aftereffects of slavery that we are still feeling today, but I don’t know if I buy that Lacks’ being African American has anything to do with this case. I also don’t know if I buy that you own your cells to such an extent. Lacks would never have known that her cancer cells had such potential, it is only the researchers who could know what to do with these important cells. It is their work that makes the cells important. Perhaps I’m callous, but I don’t understand why the Lacks family should reap the benefit of other researchers’ work. Certainly, the doctor abused Henrietta’s rights when he took the cells without her knowledge, but I don’t believe it is such a grievous wrong that her descendents should be recompensed.
I agree with Andrea about the way that sciences are sometimes portrayed as "cold," and that "they are centered upon laws and theories and leave essentially no room for a more human element." When I read that phrase, I immediately remembered the principles of "positivism." When "positivism" had its hey-day in the 1800's, the idea was to make scientific discourse a language of perfect exactness and rationality. Of course, humans are not perflectly exact nor are they completely rational - they are emotional and developmental beings. After World War I, the idealic view of science as the pure and unbiased method of communication and discovery melted away. Scientists during the World War I and II era helped forged weapons of mass destruction, and either directly or indirectly, people like Albert Einstein and Robert Oppenheimer became involved. Their ideas could not exist in the vacuum of a theory; rather, their ideas about matter and energy trickled out into the non-rational world, whether the scientists their ideas to or not.
In Henrietta Lacks, Rebecca Skloot is careful to recognize both the theoretical and practical sides to science. Skloot mentions the scientific press conferences of Dr. George Gey and Dr. Richard TeLinde. Skloot also at times discusses cancer in a-matter-of-fact way: "carcinoma in situ was simply an early stage of invasive carcinoma that, if left untreated, eventually became deadly." However, she always brought the story back to the people involved, the very human people who are pressured and pushed by other forces besides mere rationality. Alexis Carrey directed his science towards white-supremacy and Nazis ends, and Henrietta Lacks just came to the hospital to be cured, not to be the catalyst for cancer research. Despite what "positivists" believed, science comes from real people, and science also can have major effects on that same human world. As the history of the world and the need for research ethics attests, science cannot be isolated in theory forever.
Should scientists forego research for the sake of possibly preventing someone from using the findings in a negative way?
Knowing about the virtue of the prudence, how much responsibility do scientists hold for their discoveries after they have left the lab?
In response to Michael's question, I think scientists do have some responsiblity to keeping both the cells and data in the right hands. Prudence dictates who the information is passed on to. I also agree with JJ to a degree; what would Henrietta's family do with the cells? Scientists in that day were the only ones who could even recognize the potential of growing cells in a lab. Henrietta did not understand that radiation would sterilize her, so the odds are great that she wouldn't understand culturing cells and the ensuing research. However, it was an unethical action to not ask her permission to take a sample. That, I think we can all agree, is indisputable. I'd also raise a question for discussion: Would it be ethical for Henrietta's family to make a profit off of her cells?
I finally figured out how to work this little blog thing! Yay! (Thank you Brianna). Anyways, the first section of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks has, as mostly everyone else has said on here, been a shocking one to say the least.
Not being at all a natural scientist myself, I was not very familiar with the HeLa cells. After reading this first part of the book, however, I do remember learning about them in my high school biology class; it just was not something I readily retained in the foreground of my memory.
The injustices presented in this book are certainly sickening. It is hard to believe that such things took place in recent history here in the United States. It is quite difficult for me to think about the horrible inequality suffered by the African American race in every aspect of their lives just 30 or 40 years ago, but the fact that they were not only denied sufficient medical treatment, but consciously manipulated for the sake of "curing" the ailments of the caucasian race, absolutely infuriates me.
As far as Henrietta's story goes, I do not think she would have been against giving her cells up to science in order to potentially help save others, but the fact that she was never asked if it was okay with her to do so bothers me. That it is only now, 60 years after the fact, that she is being recognized as a human being, is quite deplorable. And, since her cells did end up changing modern science, I think it is ridiculous that her family is impoverished. What a disgrace! Not only did this woman suffer at the end of her life with such a gruesome case of cancer, but now, after those same toxic cells have so significantly changed medical science, her family is still struggling. Quel dommage.
I applaud Ms. Skloot for her quest to tell this story and let the world know just who Henrietta Lacks is, far beyond just the composition of her cells.
The biggest problem I had with this section was that the family had no idea what was being done with Henrietta's cells. While the rest of the world was 'in the loop' and benefitting from them, the family was left in the dark. It's very difficult to believe that no one considered how they would feel and felt it would be right to inform them at least of what was going on. It was too late to ask permission, but to at least give them the courtesy of having the information would have been better than what they really got: nothing. I'm not necessarily saying that the family should have profited from the cells, even though many people were making money off of them. My biggest issue is that Henrietta was a person, with a life and family. The scientific community acts as if the person never existed and only cares about the cells, not the individual they came from. It is dehumanizing. Also, by not telling the family they had come to let Henrietta and her memory lie in peace with no idea that she was living on....which made it an even more significant shock when they came to find out the truth. The whole ordeal was made fresh in their minds. Basically I am just appalled at the complete lack of consideration for Henrietta and her family.
In response to whomever "Bonny" may be, I feel as if there should be some kind of profit made by the family for Henrietta's cells. While it is very kind of her, very altruistic if you will, to have been a part of the scientific process, would it not be apropos to give her loved ones a little thanks, in her stead? Reading this gave me an even better concept of just how far science and ethics enforcement has come along. Previously, the only ideas I had were from what I knew of psychological and some drug testing done in "the good old days". Thus, I too would have to agree that this was both eye opening and somewhat appalling.
I think that while what happened to Henrietta Lacks was terrible and wrong, we should have some sympathy for the doctors involved. Here was a situation that literally no one else in history had been in. It's not like they could have reasonably expected to find themselves in a situation where they would have to deal with magic cells that somehow kept living and were incredibly useful for research. There was absolutely no precedent for such a thing, which must have made it difficult to decide what to do. Should someone have stepped up and protected Lacks' rights? Yes. But it is all too easy to see how everyone involved just assumed someone else was going to take care of the ethical aspect, and decided to let "them" take care of it.
That being said, I'm not 100% sure what Lacks' descendants want at this point. They sort of seem like the Sons of Confederate veterans (and yeah, I'm aware of the irony) at this time--your ancestor may have been pretty awesome, but that battle is over now. If there is a lot of money being made off of Lacks' cells, however, I think they definitely deserve a cut.
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeleteAs a Biology major, I had heard of the famous HeLa cells before and was pretty excited when I saw that this book was on the reading list. So far, I have not been disappointed. In many ways, I feel that the sciences are the ‘coldest’ courses of study; they are centered upon laws and theories and leave essentially no room for a more human element. In the first section of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Rebecca Skloot does a wonderful job of bringing the science behind the immortal HeLa cells to life by telling the story of Henrietta Lacks; a story that I believe should have been told much sooner than 2010, the year the book was published.
ReplyDeletePerhaps the most striking theme of this first section is how different the practice of medicine and the field of science in general were at the time that Henrietta began receiving treatment for cervical cancer. For years I’ve viewed the field of medicine as black and white; nobody in our country is denied treatment, and doctors always do as much as they can to help their patients. Before reading these chapters, I was familiar with the laws of the Jim Crow south, but I was shocked to discover that they extended into the realm of medicine. It’s somewhat horrifying to consider the fact that only 50 years ago we provided only subpar medical attention to those of the African American race. The first example that we see in the book occurs in Chapter 1, when Skloot states that black people were often refused admittance to all-white hospitals, “even if it meant they might die in the parking lot.” Even when they did receive treatment, studies showed that doctors waited longer to treat black patients than white patients and that black patients were more likely to die while in the hospital. Henrietta was actually lucky in the sense that she was allowed admittance into Hopkins, but she did have to remain in a segregated ward.
When Henrietta finally begins to receive radium treatments, her surgeon takes a piece of her tumor and a piece of her cervix without her consent. These biopsies eventually become the source of the immortal HeLa cells, but it goes without saying that the method used to obtain them was less than ethically correct. Can we say for sure that Wharton, the surgeon, took the tissue samples without consent because Henrietta was colored? Was he among the hordes of others in the Jim Crow south who felt that African Americans weren’t even intelligent enough to make informed decisions? We will, of course, never know; but it’s certainly food for thought.
Numerous other examples of medical racism can be found within the first section of the book, such as the case of Henrietta’s epileptic daughter Elsie, who was forced to enter ‘The Hospital for the Negro Insane.” The most blatant example of racism, however, can be found in the phone conversation that the author has with Roland Pattillo. When Pattillo asks her what she knows about African Americans and science, Skloot launches into a discussion of the infamous Tuskegee syphilis study, in which hundreds of black men died, and of the countless unnecessary hysterectomies preformed in Mississippi, partly to stop the spread of an “inferior race.” Cases like these are deplorable, and are an enormous blight on the history of science.
The subject of racism in medicine really deserves its own paper rather than a simple blog post; but I can definitely say that the first section of Henrietta Lacks has been eye-opening in this regard.
Wow! What an interesting read! Thus far, as Andrea mentioned, "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks" has been eye-opening to say the least. Beyond the fact that this idea of HeLa cells amazes me as I am not at all a scientist, I have been shocked by the unethical practices that take place within the first section of the book.
ReplyDeleteThough research ethics is still very much an issue today, it is incredible how far we have come. I was shocked by the horridly unethical practices revealed on pages 29 and 30, stating that "TeLinde often used patients from the public wards for research, usually without their knowledge" and "TeLinde began collecting samples from any woman who happened to walk into Hopkins with cervical cancer." Mary and Margaret also collected umbilical cord blood after babies were born at Hopkins (36), yet again, with no consent. Such practices were so commonplace, that after the HeLa cells began multiplying, George's colleagues immediately asked for a share of the multiplying cells of this living woman (41). And of course, George agreed--still with no consent.
I have to agree with Andrea that these already common unethical practices were heightened in Henrietta's case due to the Jim Crow laws. The racial tension is first seen as Henrietta has to drive twenty miles to reach "the only major hospital for miles that treated black patients." (15) Due to her race and "chart" as detailed on page 16, I surmise that TeLinde had very little respect for Henrietta and did not think twice about collecting a sample of her cervical cancer.
"The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks" is such a seemingly surreal story. How ironic that her cells "transformed modern medicine" (75), WITHOUT HER CONSENT.
With not only next to no science background, but also an extreme distaste of the subject as a whole, I expected myself to also have distaste for this book. However, I find this book to be a fascinating and enjoyable read. Having never heard of Hela cells before, I now feel like I possess a good grasp of what they are, how they work and what exactly makes them remarkable.
ReplyDeleteWhat struck me the most about this section of the novel was the stories of the things done to poor African Americans in the name of science, such as the shocking syphilis study described. Scientists wanted to study the progression of syphilis and how it killed from start to finish and they would do this by offering a free meal and ride into town to poor African American men (a population in which syphilis was a serious problem) and observe the disease as it progressed. Doctors watching a poor uneducated population die of a perfectly disease is appallingly unethical. Regardless of what medical advances are made and the number of lives saved, there is no justification for allowing someone to die from something you can prevent.
This book, as both Karlie and Andrea have already mentioned has been truly eye opening and raised many ethical questions about race relations, views of superiority and a doctors responsibility.
The first part of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks has been vastly interesting and extremely informative for me. I had actually never heard of the HeLa cells before and therefore had no idea what the book was about before I began reading. Some of the most striking details thus far have been the descriptions of the kind of poverty Henrietta and her family lived in as children and the accounts of her various visits to Johns Hopkins medical clinic for cancer treatment.
ReplyDeleteThe poverty she and her family lived in was amazing to me not just because of the obvious hardships they had to deal with, but because of the way in which they handled it. They didn’t know any other life, and therefore they made due with what they had and the situations they were given. The integrity and strength with which Henrietta dealt with her daily tasks and sometimes miserable situations astounded me. “They didn’t go on a honeymoon because there was too much work to do...So after their wedding, Day went back to gripping the splintered ends of his old wooden plow as Henrietta followed close behind, pushing a homemade wheelbarrow and dropping tobacco seedlings into holes in the freshly turned red dirt” (24). She never lost this characteristic, as we can see from her perseverance and calm attitude even while getting radiation treatment for her cervical cancer. “After each treatment, Henrietta would change back into her clothes and walk the few blocks to Margaret’s house, where she’d wait for Day to pick her up around midnight” (47). She did what she had to do despite probable discomfort and fear due to her condition.
The treatment Henrietta received was probably quite up to date for the time in which she was living, but the way in which the doctors treated her as though she were less than an adult woman or patient is what is disturbing. The most obvious examples of this include the doctor’s taking a sample of her tumor and giving it to George Gey without Henrietta’s permission and his performing treatments which caused her to no longer be child-bearing without consulting or informing her beforehand. “Until that moment, Henrietta didn’t know that the treatments had left her infertile” (47). The usual practice was to let patients know about these kinds of procedures before performing them. “The psychic effect of hysterectomy, especially on the young, is considerable, and it should not be done without a thorough understanding on the part of the patient [who is] entitled to a simple explanation of the facts [including] loss of the reproductive function” (47). However, Henrietta was not given the same consideration. There is later mention that she would not have allowed the procedures if she had known they would make her no longer able to bear children. While this is quite predictable from her earlier refusals of various treatments, the choice should have been given to her...and it was not. While it’s impossible to be completely sure, this probably had something to do with the fact that she was a poor, black woman and she wouldn’t be able to do much about it.
I’ve really enjoyed the book thus far and I look forward to seeing the rest of the story unfold and learning more about the woman behind the legendary HeLa cells.
As you guys have been saying, some of the medical practices shocked and horrified me—especially the one you highlighted, Holly, about the syphilis study. It was also horrifying for me to learn that Carrel, who supposedly had similar type of HeLa cells but with a chicken heart, was a Nazi sympathizer and collaborator who wanted to use his research to create the master race.
ReplyDeleteI don’t like the idea that they took Henrietta Lack’s cells without her knowledge. They should have asked her permission. In fact, I can’t imagine that she wouldn’t give them her permission if they had just asked. What I don’t understand yet in the reading of this book, however, is what exactly the family wants. Do they deserve part of the money that someone made on these cells? (I don’t even know yet if anyone made money on these cells. At this point Guy is just using them for research, and is freely—in both senses of the word—giving them out to whatever scientist wants them.) So far the cells are being used for pure research.
And so far, it seems to me like John Hopkins treated Lacks very well, other than not asking her permission. Very unlike the syphilis case, it seems like the doctors at Hopkins did everything they could to cure Lacks’ cancer. It was simply beyond them. They didn’t put her life at risk or anything like that. They didn’t withhold treatment. They’re using her cells for a good reason.
This doesn’t justify their not asking for her permission, but I don’t exactly see it as a horrifying unforgivable sin either. Would they have asked a white woman for her permission either? Would they even have asked a white man for permission in the same circumstances? I’m not sure they were thinking about human cells for research in terms of “owning” like maybe we would now.
I’m also not sure of what the family wants from all this. If the Lacks’s had known they were taking her cells and then had later known how important they were, would they deserve to get some of the money that people might get for it? I feel very sorry for this family who has, like so many African Americans, been abused by the aftereffects of slavery that we are still feeling today, but I don’t know if I buy that Lacks’ being African American has anything to do with this case.
I also don’t know if I buy that you own your cells to such an extent. Lacks would never have known that her cancer cells had such potential, it is only the researchers who could know what to do with these important cells. It is their work that makes the cells important. Perhaps I’m callous, but I don’t understand why the Lacks family should reap the benefit of other researchers’ work. Certainly, the doctor abused Henrietta’s rights when he took the cells without her knowledge, but I don’t believe it is such a grievous wrong that her descendents should be recompensed.
I agree with Andrea about the way that sciences are sometimes portrayed as "cold," and that "they are centered upon laws and theories and leave essentially no room for a more human element." When I read that phrase, I immediately remembered the principles of "positivism." When "positivism" had its hey-day in the 1800's, the idea was to make scientific discourse a language of perfect exactness and rationality. Of course, humans are not perflectly exact nor are they completely rational - they are emotional and developmental beings. After World War I, the idealic view of science as the pure and unbiased method of communication and discovery melted away. Scientists during the World War I and II era helped forged weapons of mass destruction, and either directly or indirectly, people like Albert Einstein and Robert Oppenheimer became involved. Their ideas could not exist in the vacuum of a theory; rather, their ideas about matter and energy trickled out into the non-rational world, whether the scientists their ideas to or not.
ReplyDeleteIn Henrietta Lacks, Rebecca Skloot is careful to recognize both the theoretical and practical sides to science. Skloot mentions the scientific press conferences of Dr. George Gey and Dr. Richard TeLinde. Skloot also at times discusses cancer in a-matter-of-fact way: "carcinoma in situ was simply an early stage of invasive carcinoma that, if left untreated, eventually became deadly." However, she always brought the story back to the people involved, the very human people who are pressured and pushed by other forces besides mere rationality. Alexis Carrey directed his science towards white-supremacy and Nazis ends, and Henrietta Lacks just came to the hospital to be cured, not to be the catalyst for cancer research. Despite what "positivists" believed, science comes from real people, and science also can have major effects on that same human world. As the history of the world and the need for research ethics attests, science cannot be isolated in theory forever.
Should scientists forego research for the sake of possibly preventing someone from using the findings in a negative way?
Knowing about the virtue of the prudence, how much responsibility do scientists hold for their discoveries after they have left the lab?
In response to Michael's question, I think scientists do have some responsiblity to keeping both the cells and data in the right hands. Prudence dictates who the information is passed on to. I also agree with JJ to a degree; what would Henrietta's family do with the cells? Scientists in that day were the only ones who could even recognize the potential of growing cells in a lab. Henrietta did not understand that radiation would sterilize her, so the odds are great that she wouldn't understand culturing cells and the ensuing research. However, it was an unethical action to not ask her permission to take a sample. That, I think we can all agree, is indisputable.
ReplyDeleteI'd also raise a question for discussion: Would it be ethical for Henrietta's family to make a profit off of her cells?
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteI finally figured out how to work this little blog thing! Yay! (Thank you Brianna). Anyways, the first section of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks has, as mostly everyone else has said on here, been a shocking one to say the least.
ReplyDeleteNot being at all a natural scientist myself, I was not very familiar with the HeLa cells. After reading this first part of the book, however, I do remember learning about them in my high school biology class; it just was not something I readily retained in the foreground of my memory.
The injustices presented in this book are certainly sickening. It is hard to believe that such things took place in recent history here in the United States. It is quite difficult for me to think about the horrible inequality suffered by the African American race in every aspect of their lives just 30 or 40 years ago, but the fact that they were not only denied sufficient medical treatment, but consciously manipulated for the sake of "curing" the ailments of the caucasian race, absolutely infuriates me.
As far as Henrietta's story goes, I do not think she would have been against giving her cells up to science in order to potentially help save others, but the fact that she was never asked if it was okay with her to do so bothers me. That it is only now, 60 years after the fact, that she is being recognized as a human being, is quite deplorable. And, since her cells did end up changing modern science, I think it is ridiculous that her family is impoverished. What a disgrace! Not only did this woman suffer at the end of her life with such a gruesome case of cancer, but now, after those same toxic cells have so significantly changed medical science, her family is still struggling. Quel dommage.
I applaud Ms. Skloot for her quest to tell this story and let the world know just who Henrietta Lacks is, far beyond just the composition of her cells.
The biggest problem I had with this section was that the family had no idea what was being done with Henrietta's cells. While the rest of the world was 'in the loop' and benefitting from them, the family was left in the dark. It's very difficult to believe that no one considered how they would feel and felt it would be right to inform them at least of what was going on. It was too late to ask permission, but to at least give them the courtesy of having the information would have been better than what they really got: nothing. I'm not necessarily saying that the family should have profited from the cells, even though many people were making money off of them. My biggest issue is that Henrietta was a person, with a life and family. The scientific community acts as if the person never existed and only cares about the cells, not the individual they came from. It is dehumanizing. Also, by not telling the family they had come to let Henrietta and her memory lie in peace with no idea that she was living on....which made it an even more significant shock when they came to find out the truth. The whole ordeal was made fresh in their minds. Basically I am just appalled at the complete lack of consideration for Henrietta and her family.
ReplyDeleteIn response to whomever "Bonny" may be, I feel as if there should be some kind of profit made by the family for Henrietta's cells. While it is very kind of her, very altruistic if you will, to have been a part of the scientific process, would it not be apropos to give her loved ones a little thanks, in her stead? Reading this gave me an even better concept of just how far science and ethics enforcement has come along. Previously, the only ideas I had were from what I knew of psychological and some drug testing done in "the good old days". Thus, I too would have to agree that this was both eye opening and somewhat appalling.
ReplyDeleteI think that while what happened to Henrietta Lacks was terrible and wrong, we should have some sympathy for the doctors involved. Here was a situation that literally no one else in history had been in. It's not like they could have reasonably expected to find themselves in a situation where they would have to deal with magic cells that somehow kept living and were incredibly useful for research. There was absolutely no precedent for such a thing, which must have made it difficult to decide what to do. Should someone have stepped up and protected Lacks' rights? Yes. But it is all too easy to see how everyone involved just assumed someone else was going to take care of the ethical aspect, and decided to let "them" take care of it.
ReplyDeleteThat being said, I'm not 100% sure what Lacks' descendants want at this point. They sort of seem like the Sons of Confederate veterans (and yeah, I'm aware of the irony) at this time--your ancestor may have been pretty awesome, but that battle is over now. If there is a lot of money being made off of Lacks' cells, however, I think they definitely deserve a cut.