References: (p 338-358)
Summary: Henrietta Lacks, known by scientists as Hela was a poor southern tobacco farmer. The cells from this farmer were taken without her knowledge and became the most essential tool in medicine. These were the first ‘immortal’ cells known in mankind and are still alive today though Henrietta has been dead for more than 60 years. These cells have been very important in developing vaccine for polio and have also led to fertilization, cloning and gene mapping which have been bought and sold by billions. All this happens while Henrietta is buried in an unmarked grave her family did not even know about her ‘immortality’ until twenty years after she died, this happened when scientists who were investigating Henrietta started researching her husband and children without their consent.
Imprint: Waterville, Me.: Thorndike Press, 2010
Reference: (p 571- 651)
Summary: The story of the lacks family is connected to the dark history of experiments on AfricanAmericans. This documents the story of how scientists took cells from a descendant of freed slaves and created a human cell line that has been kept alive. This enabled the discoveries in cancer and vitro fertilization, cloning and gene mapping. These hela cells weigh over 50 million metric tons this calculation was based on the way the cells are known to divide and also the amount of time they had been alive during the time the calculation was made. A multimillion dollar industry was launched using the cells to sell human biological materials, this industry made a lot of money though the family never saw any money at all.
Imprint: New York: Broadway Paperbacks, c2011
Summary: .The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks tells a story of the collision between ethics, race, and medicine, it tells of the story of scientific discovery and faith healing. It is a story connected to the dark history of experimentation on African Americans, the rise of bioethics, and the legal battles over whether we control the stuff we’re made of.While covering this story Rebecca Skloot became enmeshed in the lives of the Lacks family especially with Henrietta’s daughter Deborah who had so many questions about her mother and her cells, did it hurt her mother when scientists infected her cells and shot them into space? What happened to her younger sister Elsie who passed away at the age of fifteen in a mental institution and if her mother was so important to science, why couldn’t her children afford health insurance? All these questions burdened Deborah. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks captures the beauty and drama of scientific discovery as well as its human consequences that came with it.
Imprint: http:www.npr.org/books-The immortal life of Henrietta lacks, 8th March 2011.
Henrietta Lacks is a fundamental contributor I the medical field all thanks to the famous “immortal cells” that were taken from her cervix and cultured for the study of cancer as a chronic illness and which have lived longer than any known human cells hence the accordance of the immortality title. Henrietta, then, a mother of five died of what is believed to be cervical cancer. The culturing of her cells has led to the production of trillions of these cells, famously known as ‘Hela cells’ which is has led to the development of cures for various diseases such influenza, herpes, and Parkinson’s disease among others.
