Author: Rebecca Skloot
Series/Standalone: Standalone
Genre: Nonfiction, Biography, Science
Pages: 370
Publisher: Crown Publishing Group
Year Published: 2010
Format: Audiobook
"Her name was Henrietta Lacks, but scientists know her as HeLa. She was a poor Southern tobacco farmer who worked the same land as her slave ancestors, yet her cells- taken without her knowledge- became one of the most important tools in medicine. The first 'immortal' human cells grown in culture, they are still alive today, though she has been dead for more than sixty years. If you could pile all the HeLa cells ever grown onto a scale, they'd weigh more than 50 million metric tons- as much as a hundred Empire State Buildings. HeLa cells were vital for developing the polio vaccine; uncovered secrets of cancer, viruses, and the atom bomb effect's; helped lead to important advances in vitro fertilization, cloning and gene mapping; and have been bought and sold by billions.
Yet Henrietta Lacks remains virtually unknown, buried in an unmarked grave.
Now Rebecca Skloot takes us on an extraordinary journey, from the 'colored' ward of Johns Hopkins Hospital in the 1950s to stark white laboratories with freezers full of HeLa cells; from Henrietta's small, dying hometown fo Clover, Virginia- a land of wooden slave quarters, faith healings and voodoo- toe East Baltimore today, where her children and grandchildren live and struggle with the legacy of her cells.
Henrietta's family did not learn of her 'immortality' until more than twenty years after her death, when scientists investigating HeLa began using her husband and children in research without informed consent. And though the cells had launched a multimillion-dollar industry that sells human biological materials, her family never saw any of the profits. As Rebecca Skloot so brilliantly shows, the story of the Lacks family- past and present- is inextricably connected to the dark history of experimentation on African Americans, the birth of bioethics and the legal battles over whether we control the stuff we are made of.
Over the decade it took to uncover this story, Rebecca became enmeshed in the lives of the Lacks family- especially Henrietta's daughter Deborah, who was devastated to learn about her mother's cells. She was consumed with questions: Had scientists cloned her mother? Did it hurt her when researchers infected her cells with viruses and shot them into space? What happened to her sister, Elsie, who died in a mental institution at the age of fifteen? And if her mother was so important to medicine, why couldn't her children afford health insurance?
Intimate in feeling, astonishing in scope, and impossible to put down, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks capture the beauty of drama of scientific discovery, as well as its human consequences."
My Rating: 4/5
I am not an extremely educated woman. I don't know much about science particularly. I read this book as a part of an online book club through Goodreads. I was super interested in this story and the rights people have to their bodies/cells/tissues. It was upsetting to hear about the past treatment of African American people in hospital and medical care. I knew that it wasn't going to be a happy story or even a hopeful one but this was depressing to read about. And while we've come along way in society we just haven't come far enough. How is it that a person's cells can be used for research and their children are unable to get the coverage they need for their own medical expenses. I don't understand this at all. I would also like to note that I am privileged in multitudes of ways. I am caucasian, I am a middle-class woman and I am a Canadian citizen. These are the facts so while I don't know everything that other people go through, but its important to shine lights on the discrimination of the past as we as currently. In fact, the facts are that privileged members of society have the ability to shine lights on discretions of the past and present in order to change the world for the better. Especially in times such as now, with a global pandemic being announced. We need to stand together to better understand the use of science, research but also the different barriers each other face in order to access healthcare, medication or even groceries that we need.
In times such as these, be thoughtful, be kind and be there for each other.
Thanks for reading,
Sidny
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