The Immortal life of Henrietta Lacks tells the story of the Lacks family through the eyes of science journalist Rebecca Skloot. It is the story of how she got to know Henrietta’s family and investigated the story of the HeLa cells further. Henrietta Lacks died of cervical cancer at a young age, leaving behind five children. Before she died, cancerous cells from her cervix were taken without her knowledge and they were the first cells that were able to keep growing in culture. They did not degenerate like normal cells do and therefore they were able to keep dividing and multiplying, becoming “immortal.” The cells were named HeLa cells and they became the foundation for much of current medical science and investigations. Research using these cells lead to some of the most important advances in medicine such as gene mapping, the polio vaccine, in vitro fertilization, cloning, chemotherapy, and many more. Today, the HeLa cells are still used in research studying Parkinson’s disease, herpes, leukemia, and AIDS. The cells are used all over the world, but the problem was that for many years the Lacks family was completely unaware. This was also in part because the original article written about her used the wrong name of Helen Lane.
In this novel, Rebecca Skloot tells the story of how she became involved with the Lacks family during her search for knowledge about Henrietta Lacks. She connects the medical and science part of the story with a more personal side of her conversations and experiences. At first, when Skloot tries contacting the family they are very against the idea of speaking to another reporter about Henrietta’s famous cells, because they have suffered a lot and been treaded poorly by the scientific community and the media. She soon realizes that she will have to gain their trust and let them know that she truly wants to get Henrietta’s story out there for the greater good. Skloot was the first person to take the time to explain the situation and the science behind everything that had happened to Henrietta’s relatives, because the doctors had never given them any answers. They even took advantage of the family’s lack of knowledge because Gey asked to make an autopsy on the body so he could collect more samples. He claimed that it was to help them see how he could protect the rest of the family if they developed cancer, but this was not true at all.
When Henrietta began feeling like something was wrong, she went to Johns Hopkins Hospital to seek help. She was diagnosed with cervical cancer and treated with radium and x-ray therapy, but in the process, some of her tumor was kept in George Gey’s lab to be grown in test tubes. Gey had been trying for years to get cells to divide infinitely so they could have an inexhaustible supply of human cells that they could experiment on. It was the first time that Gey was successful in creating a line of immortal cells. His success was in part due to his wife Margaret, who was a surgical nurse and helped out with her sterilization techniques. Together, they also developed a method for feeding the cells and they used things such as blood from human umbilical cords, the plasma of chickens, and special salts. They were successful and created what is now considered one of the most important breakthroughs in science. However, Henrietta was not informed of the fact that they took her cells and neither was her family. The Lacks family was poor, uneducated and her children were abused by Ethel and Galen. The story focuses most on two of her kids: Deborah and Joe. Joe was beaten and isolated from the rest of the family, so he grew up to be very unstable and violent. He even spent years in prison. Also, Deborah was sexually molested by Galen and she was then in an abusive relationship. We also learn about Elsie, Deborah’s older sister who was institutionalized because she couldn’t hear or speak and suffered from epilepsy. Elsie died at Crownsville Hospital for the Negro Insane and Deborah wanted to find more about this.
The Lacks family actually found out about the HeLa cells on accident, and soon researchers were calling the family to get permission to get their blood. This was because the HeLa cells had begun contaminating other cell lines around the world, so they wanted to find genetic markers that would help scientists identify the cells and keep the different lines separate. However, nobody really explained anything to the family, and they did not receive any sort of monetary compensation. Of course, the family felt exploited and taken advantage of so they became very wary of reports. However, after Skloot gains Deborah’s trust, she is able to uncover Henrietta’s story as well as Elsie’s. We learn some very disturbing things about how Elsie was treated at the hospital and the unethical experiments that they did on humans. I found all of these findings extremely disturbing, because I had no idea things like that had really happened. Learning about events like the Tuskegee syphilis studies, where they experimented on innocent men, as well learning about the patients who were injected with cancerous cells was really shocking for me. Also, it made me reflect on how this wasn’t even that long ago, it was less than 70 years and we were still seeing immense amounts of racism against African Americans and abuse towards minorities. Although this has improved, it is shocking to see how despite things like this happening in the past, we continue to see racism in our world today.
I loved how the book not only talked about all of the scientific discovery and the importance of the HeLa cells, but that it also had a more personal side to it. I feel like that is what makes this book different to all the other articles and papers previously written about Henrietta Lacks. Skloot really took the time to help us know the family and the people involved, as well as presenting a complete picture of what happened. I am happy that Deborah was able to find the answers she had been looking for for so long regarding Elsie, even though the information she found was shocking and very terrible.
I really enjoyed reading this book because I feel like it raises some very important ethical questions about informed consent in scientific studies as well as the balance between protecting a family’s privacy and doing something for the public good. The case regarding Henrietta really helped set in motion actions that would make scientific research more ethical. This would lead to more regulations regarding patient confidentiality as well as having to get authorization and approval. This novel also raises questions about making profit in the science and medicine world versus remaining loyal and keeping patient confidentiality. I feel like it shows a different side of science that we might not think about in our day to day, so it was extremely interesting to read about all of this side of science. It really made me think about how people were taken advantage of and how unfair things were, and how they probably might still be. It’s shocking to think how something so positive like finding multiple vaccines and groundbreaking findings could come from something so horrible as taking advantage of Henrietta Lacks and not getting her consent. It must feel horrible for the family that so many years passed and they had no idea and received nothing. However, although it might seem a little odd, they should definitely feel proud that it was their mother who contributed to such amazing discoveries, even if it was unknowingly. Thanks to the HeLa cells, doctors can now study viruses, drugs, human genetics, among many other topics.