A completely different topic: Reading Henrietta Lacks' story

I have had a chance to completely immerse myself in the story of Henrietta Lacks. When I first purchased this book, I realized that I was completely unaware of her presence as well as her importance in the history of medicine and scientific framework. What most caught my attention is how the story is presented to the audience; not only the medical implications, but also the human side. Henrietta represents many sensitive topics. She is a poor woman, almost an orphan, housewife, mother, worker, African-American, and diagnosed with cancer. Did I miss something? As we can see her story embodies provocative issues in everyday life and society. It encompasses poverty, racism, oppression, gender, and most important: ethics.

     As a kind of biography, I will mention some important details which in my opinion are relevant to understand her story. She was born in Roanoke, Virginia, on August 1, 1920. Her mother died when she was only four years old and lamentably her father did not have the patience for raising his children. In consequence, Henrietta and her siblings moved to her grandfather’s house in Clover (also Virginia) where her family still farmed the tobacco fields.          

     While living in Clover she met her cousin (and future husband) David Lacks with whom she spent time planting and harvesting tobacco, and most important growing up together. Henrietta was considered to be the prettiest girl in her town, with her beautiful smile and walnut eyes.

     She had a little crush on Crazy Joe, who was also her cousin; however, the relationship that she developed with ‘Day’ was deeper. Because he was deeply in love with Henrietta, Crazy Joe was called like that. He even stabbed himself in the chest when he realized she was getting married to Day. So it was done, Henrietta married to Day and they kept working on the tobacco fields till their Cousin Fred Garret came from Baltimore bringing the good news: he got a job in Turner Station. Due the rise of steel production at Bethlehem Steel’s Sparrows Point, employment began to increase as well as the number of African-American workers. It suddenly became “the promise land” for black families from the south that started migrating and heading towards a new life. The work in this “promise land” was not easy. All the black workers were immersed in a poisonous environment; they were constantly breathing in toxic coal dust and asbestos. Needless to say, all of these toxic wastes were brought to their own homes and spread to their families. Despite this fact, Fred convinced his cousins that they should migrate as well.

     Since 1951, Henrietta started to feel strange and find inside her cervix a prominent lump. She asked her husband to take her to the hospital because she was already bleeding. After several exams, Henrietta’s biopsy report from the lab said that she was diagnosed with “epidermoid carcinoma of the cervix, stage I”. Henrietta’s gynecologist, whose name was Howard W. Jones, his boss, Richard Wesley, and Telinde, a cancer expert, discussed if it qualified as cervical cancer--and the procedures to cure her. Telinde had a good reputation; he was one of the best cancer experts in the country. Within his methods, he treated both carcinoma in situ and invasive carcinoma using an aggressive treatment to prevent women dying from metastasized cancer.  He often used patients from the public wards for research, usually without their knowledge. Many scientists believed that since patients were treated for free in the public wards, it was fair to use them as research subjects as a form of payment. After knowing her results Henrietta signed an Operation Permit form giving consent to the staff of Hopkins Hospital to perform any necessary procedure or treatment (radium treatment, in fact). Even though nobody asked her if she wanted to be a donor, doctors at Hopkins removed pieces of tissue from her cervix. Doctors also did not tell her that the treatment had left her infertile.

     After the first radium treatment, she was sent home with instructions to call the clinic if she had problems (and she had some later on). Two days after Henrietta went home, the Gey Lab was able to grow her cancer cells: the first immortal human cells.