‘Instructor’s Name’
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
‘The immortal life of Henrietta Lacks’ written by Rebecca Skloot is a heartwarming story of an African American woman, whose cells have contributed immensely to medical science. Henrietta was suffering from cervical cancer and while undergoing treatment for this ailment, some cells from her body were extracted and used for medical experiments. These cells were named ‘HeLa’ cells and they went on to become the source of many important discoveries in the medical field. Many pharmaceutical companies reaped millions of profit from the researches based on these cells, and there are over seventeen thousand patents based on the ‘HeLa’ cells today.
But the Lacks family did not get any monetary compensation, and neither did Henrietta, who succumbed to cancer in 1951, or her descendants receive any sort of credit for their role. The consent of Henrietta or her family was not obtained before extracting their tissues for research and they were not consulted or informed during the experiments. This is the essence of Skloot’s book, in which she has dealt with many larger issues such as role of morality in scientific research, ethical debates on property rights of the cells extracted for research purposes, cost vs. benefits of medical progress and how has medical ethics evolved over the past century. The aim of this essay is to study in detail one such aspect dealt by the book, namely whether racism had a part to play in the events unfolded in Henrietta Lacks life, and to analyze how the author traces the politics of race in the medicine field thoughtfully.
An explicit description of the racism that existed in the Jim Crow era is found in the opening of the book, when Henrietta goes to the Hopkins university hospital, which is the only major hospital in the vicinity that would treat Black patients. In fact the very first paragraph makes a mention of the Jim Crow laws of the 1950s when Skloot says
“Henrietta, jumped out of the car, pulled her jacket over her head, and scurried into the hospital, past the “colored” bathroom, the only one she was allowed to use”(Skloot, 13)
She further clarifies the segregation that was prevalent in the society in this chapter, by painstakingly delineating how the Blacks were sent away by the staff if they went to a Whites only hospital. She also mentions how the Hopkins hospital was always filled with black people who were generally poor and were not able to afford their medical bills. She adds that even in the Hopkins hospital there were separate wards for the Blacks and the Whites. Thus in the very first chapter the author captures both the segregation that existed in the Jim Crow society, and the economic depravity of the black people, in particular of the Lacks family.
Henrietta represents the next generation, who though lived in a world free of slavery, still did not seem to have gotten away from the clutches of poverty. Henrietta’s plight with her cervical cancer is documented in detail in the book and given the fact that she herself had five children and had her first child when she was thirteen, portrays her lack of sex education. She too led a life of poverty and the doctors that treated her seem to be insensitive to her poverty, and blamed her condition on her non-compliance of the doctors’ advice rather than on her lack of material resources.
“Breathing difficult since childhood due to recurrent throat infections and deviated septum in patient’s nose. Physician recommended surgical repair. Patient declined.” (Skloot, pg. 16)
Deborah, the daughter of Henrietta too lives in a world of poverty and when first told about her mother’s cells being alive even after her death, her initial reaction was to worry whether her mother’s cells would feel the pain due to the extensive researches carried on them by the researchers. So we see how generations of an African American family, one living during the slavery era, one during the Jim Crow era and one in the modern era, all suffer from similar evil – lack of education and poverty.
As Lembert- Heidenreich and Mildorf opines Henrietta’s story is not a straightforward one of Whites exploiting the Blacks but it is a complex intertwined account of medical ethics, legal issues, class, poverty and race, and Skloot has managed to present each facet of her story effectively. (Lembert-Heidenreich and Mildorf, 2013) There have been many fictional works and biographies written before about the racial oppression found in the American society. But the unique aspect of Skloot’s book is that though racialism is not the main theme of the story, still she manages to give the details of the racial related problems suffered by the Lacks family, in the due course of their struggle. Most of the times, she shares the facts of the situation, without opinionating on them, and this matter-of-fact style employed by the author highlights the racism present in the life of the Lackses furthermore.
“she’d walk two miles—past the white school where children threw rocks and taunted her—to the colored school” (Skloot, 19)
As witnessed in the quote above racism is mentioned in passing in many parts of the book but mentioned nevertheless. It is a story about Henrietta Lacks and her family, and how they were deprived of any benefits when the cells of Henrietta were making many people across the world rich beyond belief. The author never wanders off this path, and travels unwaveringly in describing the life story of the Lacks family. Yet, she makes note of every bit of their life in recording their story and racism is definitively an integral part of their life.
As to the question of whether racism had an effect on what happened to Henrietta Lacks and her family, the answer is definitely, yes. This is because, as Goodwin opines, including Henrietta as a research participant and using her cells without her/her family’s consent are incidents that are grounded on greed, subordination and racism. In the 1950s the segregated treatment facilities of the Blacks, did not treat them well and always handled them in a manner inferior to the affluent Whites of that era. The cost of the medical treatment, Henrietta had to pay was, surrendering her right on her body. This was not a standalone incident and in 1950s it was common occurrence, whereby the bodies of Blacks were in a segregated place with little privacy and thus vulnerable for misuse. (Goodwin, 2013)
While HeLa cells have brought huge fortune to the medical fraternity some members of the Lacks family are not even able to afford their health insurance payment, this is the irony that is found throughout the story of the Lackses. Henrietta’s story is much like the slavery system whereby the Blacks toiled in the tobacco field and used their bodies to make the White men rich. There are more chilling accounts of racial discrimination in medical field like the Tuskegee syphilis experiment were African American men were refused penicillin when they were infected with syphilis. Such incidents have cultivated in the minds of African Americans a strong feeling about their bodily integrity particularly when used in medical experiments.
So it is impossible to view the story of Henrietta, who was born in a slave cabin, without the prism of race. Yes, the larger theme of the novel is bioethics but race issues have an equally significant presence throughout the story. May be somebody would have had the courtesy of at least informing the Lacks family about the origin of the much celebrated ‘HeLa’ cells, if they were not a poor African American family. Race issue is the most compelling theme of the book and as Cline and Gilles opine Skloot has given back Henrietta Lacks her name and have made her tale known to millions.(Cline and Gilles, 2012) Henrietta is no longer a Black woman sleeping in an unmarked grave, but a medical donor whose contributions has helped save millions of lives.
References
- Hughes, Kelly. Remembering Racism and Determining Ethical Practice: Why Henrietta Lack’s Tale May Remain Immortal. St. Olaf College. January 25, 2011. Web. November 26, 2013.
- Lembert-Heidenreich, Alexandra and Mildorf, Jarmila. The Writing Cure: Literature and Medicine in Context. Zurich: LIT Verlag Münster, 2013. Print.
- Michele Goodwin. The Global Body Market: Altruism's Limits. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013. Print.
- Sally Cline, Midge Gillies. The Arvon Book of Literary Non-Fiction. A& C Black, 2012. Print.
- Skloot, Rebecca. The Immortal Life of Henrietta lacks. New York: Pan Macmillan, 2010. Print
