Henrietta Lacks Case Study

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From the 1950s to the present day medicine has been advancing at an exponential rate. Most of the medical breakthroughs can be attributed to one lady, Henrietta Lacks. Henrietta Lacks’s cancer cells were the first immortalized cell line. This meant scientist could reproduce and sustain human cells outside of a body. Although many people see this as a victory for man kind others notice the ethical problems that arise from harvesting cells from a deceased women. Questions like is she still living? Was it right to use her cells without permission? As medicine advances more and more questions like these appear, due to the conflict of beliefs between the church and science. However, there will come a point when the needs and improvement of humanity are put above the privacies and concerns of individuals. In the Henrietta Lacks case her five children – who barley even knew their mother due to her young death – didn’t even know their mother’s cells were being replicated and reproduced in science experiments. The youngest of the five children (Debrah) took the initiative in discovering her mother’s cells. Through the help of Julian Salvelescu Debrah learned that her mother helped create vaccines such as the polio vaccines and that her …show more content…
In the case of medicine, there must be humans that donate their bodies and or cells to enhance the field of medicine. Even though Henrietta Lacks didn’t donate her tumor cells to science, her cells benefitted all of humanity. Henrietta Lacks situation solidifies the fact that there comes a point when the benefits to humanity out weigh the privacy and decision making of the individual. If Henrietta denied access to her cells humanity wouldn’t have a polio vaccine, wouldn’t know if it was safe for humans to fly in space, and wouldn’t understand how different viruses infect cells. There is no doubt that without Henrietta’s cells the humanity we know would be

Henrietta Lacks Case Study

Humans are taught to protect their privacy from a young age, different cultures and values give a wide range to the definition of privacy. Henrietta Lacks died in the 1950’s from ovarian cancer; while in surgery doctors took a sample of her cells and found that her cancer cells were immortal. (Skloots, 2011) The difference between Henrietta Lack’s definition of a breach of her privacy and a breach of an African American woman her same age in this generation is that the cultural norms have changed…

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The Henrietta Lacks Case

1. Based on your readings and review of the Henrietta Lacks materials describe the rights of subjects that need to be protected in research. Identify the ways in which violation of each of these rights occurred in the case of Henrietta Lacks. Informed consent is definitely one of the ethical issues in the Henrietta Lacks case. George Gey took Henrietta Lacks tissue samples and used them for research without her and her family consent. The tissue samples provided a quick way to test the effectiveness…

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Informed Consent: The Henrietta Lacks Case

The major issues with the concept of Informed Consent as it relates to the Henrietta Lacks case is did she or did she not give consent for her cells to be taken and used for research. Some would argue that she did by seeking medical treatment and then agreeing to be treated by John Hopkins Research Hospital. Others would argue that the right questions weren’t asked or she may not have understood what was being said to her at the time of treatment for cancer. Another issue that has been debated…

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The Bad Blood: The Tuskegee Study

identify as White-American. Various factors influence the decision on why racial and ethnic minorities deliberately refuse to be a part of research including experimentation, observation and different forms of study. However, the preceding aspect behind the majority of these cases, is an inherent lack of trust within the communities of minorities due to the historical mistreatment of minorities and unethical practices within the field of biomedical research. In nine-teen thirty-two, the…

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Henrietta Lacks Research Paper

Sarah Vyverberg Dr. Voss Biology Recitation 1190 4 March 2024 The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks: The Woman Behind Modern Science Loretta Pleasant, now widely known as Henrietta Lacks, was born in Roanoke, Virginia in 1920. She would later go on to live with her grandfather, Tom, in a house that used to be the slave quarters built by Henrietta’s white, slave-owning ancestors. She married her cousin, David Lacks, with whom she would have five children before dying of cervical cancer at Johns Hopkins…

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Essay on Hela Cells

Taken Without Permission In The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks individuals throughout the novel did not have jurisdiction over themselves in the scientific community. In the 1950’s, patients of a hospital approached doctors and staff as the authority and saw no reason to question their skills in the medical field. Because of their desire to obtain information for their research, the scientific community failed to consider the rights of their patients. Like many vaccines found in science, the human…

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The Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks Essay

Book Review: The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks (2011). Author’s Name: Rebecca Skloot – Publisher Course: Cell Biology Instructor: Dr. Hari Kotturi Due Date: May 1, 2024 Book Review: The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks (2011) The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks (2011) by Rebecca Skloot is an award-winning book depicting the beauty and the complexity of scientific discovery. The masterpiece has been recognized in notable awards such as the National Academies Best Book of the Year in 2011…

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Henrietta Lacks Racism

American woman named Henrietta Lacks. In her book “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks,” Rebecca Skloot begins with a picture of Henrietta Lacks, yet nobody knows who she was. However, her cells “appeared hundreds of times in magazines and science textbooks, on blogs and laboratory walls” (Skloot 1). In addition, through the treatment of Henrietta Lacks’s time at John Hopkins hospital, Rebecca Skloot truly expose the big racial gap in the health care system. Henrietta Lacks…

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Rebecca Skloot Essay

Hear the screaming Aaaaaaah! Aaaaaaah! The pain is emotionally paralyzing but physically taking over every element of her body as Henrietta Lacks jumps and rocks rapidly from the pain moving through her tumor filled body. Being strapped down and being made a prisoner of her hospital bed was the only way to keep Mrs. Lacks from falling to the floor until her body had a filling of morphine. The pearls of cancer with in her made a permanent signature in her body promising to live on forever. Baseball…

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Essay On The Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks is a 381 page nonfiction novel written by Rebecca Skloot. Author Rebecca Skloot is more than qualified for writing this novel on the life of Henrietta Lacks. Skloot “has a B.S. in biological sciences and an MFA in creative nonfiction.” This renders her a qualified author because she has a background in biology, which is the main field of science analyzed in the novel. Rebecca Skloot also encountered and grew attached to some of the real people discussed in her…

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