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THE IMMORTAL LIFE OF HENRIETTA LACKS
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, authored by Rebecca Skloot, is a biography of
Henrietta Lacks that explains the first successful extraction, survival, and multiplication of
human cells in a laboratory environment. The cells were named HeLa and were extracted from
Henrietta Lacks, who succumbed to cervical cancer in 1951 (Skloot, 2011, p. 17). Her cancerous
cells, although extracted without her consent, have facilitated significant advancements in
modern medical history. The biography reveals a clear-cut ethical wrong that led to medical
developments. Obtaining the cancerous cells without Henrietta’s consent was a social wrong
apparently perpetrated by the medical establishment. It, however, resulted in one of the most
significant breakthroughs in the scientific and medical fields and helped save millions of lives
today.
The past century has seen remarkable advancements in medical fields. New discoveries
have opened up possibilities for the treatment and prevention of life-threatening illnesses,
including those that were once regarded as death sentences, such as cancer and HIV/AIDS. Since
the HeLa breakthrough, the impact of technology on medicine has been more prominent than
ever. However, some advances have occurred under socially wrong conditions, where a health
professional breaches his or her code of ethics only to be rewarded with discoveries and lifechanging developments.
‘The Immortal life of Henrietta Lacks’ reveals how HeLa became the first immortal cell
line and the impact of HeLa in medical research. Over the years, the research on HeLa facilitated
the breakthrough of the polio vaccine, various drugs for treating leukemia, herpes, Parkinson’s
disease, influenza, and hemophilia (Caprio, 2014). Additionally, the cells helped unearth the
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mysteries of cancer as well as the degenerative impacts of the atomic bomb. HeLa cells have also
led to significant advances in cloning, gene mapping, and Vitro fertilization. The numerous
positive outcomes of the research on HeLa cells have resulted in the award of five Nobel Prizes
since 2001. A crucial fact to take into consideration, though, is the fact that the HeLa cells were
extracted without informed consent, and Henrietta’s family only came to know about it twenty
years after her death (Caprio, 2014).
Informed consent is an advocated approach to medical treatment, where patients actively
play a part in their treatment options. The medical professional discloses all relevant information
concerning a patient’s condition and offers a platform for treatment options. Since a majority of
patients have limited knowledge of medicine, it can become difficult for a physician to ascertain
that a patient has provided adequately informed consent. Informed consent applies to two
different settings: health information and biomedical research on human tissues (Kegly, 2004, p.
832).
First, before initiating any procedure, the medical practitioner must inform the patient of
the details, significance, risks, and consequences of the treatment. The doctor must then seek
consent to proceed with the treatment (Pozgar & Santucci, 2012, p. 301). The second setting is
biomedical research, where informed consent is required for extracting an individual’s biological
matter, such as cells, tissues, and organs. The researcher is required legally and ethically to
explain precisely how their biological material would be used and obtain their consent for the
agreed use (Pozgar & Santucci, 2012, p. 302).
Skloot describes the emotional ordeal faced by Henrietta’s family and the unethical
actions of journalists and researchers by violating the family’s privacy through publishing of
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personal medical records and genetic information (Skloot, 2011, p. 55). Skloot’s book also
reveals the changing ethics concerning tissue collections. In the 1950s, although it was unethical
and illegal to extract samples without consent, Henrietta’s doctor and the hospital in which she
was admitted obtained samples of tissues from female patients diagnosed with cervical cancer
(Skloot, 2011, p. 30).
The case of Henrietta Lacks also raises issues concerning bioethics. It poses a contentious
issue concerning who should benefit from scientific breakthroughs. Henrietta’s offspring, for
example, are all reared in poverty and lacks proper medical insurance, yet their mother’s cells,
which were extracted without her approval, were being sold for profit, and have been invaluable
in the field of medicine (Kegly, 2004, p. 833).
Various aspects of genetic diseases have revealed defects of the concept of informed
consent. For example, the perception of adequate information is at odds with the intricacy of
genetic information and metabolic processes. Additionally, the lack of proper training in genetics
for medical practitioners has raised concerns for the ‘information’ component of consent.
Secondly, the fact that genetic information frequently has a certain level of impact on other
people, such as a patient’s family, makes it shared information (Kegly, 2004, p. 835).
Existing informed consent assumes that decisions made by a patient only affect the life of
an individual. However, emerging models presumes that certain diseases, such as Huntington’s
disease of any form of cancer, could affect the patient’s partner, children, or close relatives
(Kegly, 2004, p. 835). Such models raise the ethical issue of extracting tissue samples from a
patient without their consent. On the one hand, it violates a patient’s privacy and rights. On the
other hand, it poses a risk on the patient’s close family due to the probability of hereditary
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factors. Additionally, it potentially limits developments and medical breakthroughs (Kegly,
2004, p. 836).
In conclusion, Rebecca Skloot authors the biography of Henrietta Lacks where she
narrates the ethical and legal issues surrounding tissue extraction without a patient’s consent. The
author focuses on Henrietta Lacks, an African-American woman who was diagnosed with
cervical cancer in the 1950s. Her doctor extracted several tissue samples without her consent,
which would eventually become a breakthrough in the field of medical research. In biomedical
research, informed consent is required for extracting an individual’s biological matter. The
researcher is required to explain clearly how their biological material would be used and obtain
their consent for the agreed use. Such restrictions raise the questions as to whether informed
consent is necessary in this day and age, where medical developments have revealed that, an
individual’s genetic information can be used to diagnose or treat other individuals, as was the
case of Henrietta Lacks.
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References
Caprio, A. (2014). The good, the bad, and the HeLa - The Berkeley Science Review. The
Berkeley Science Review. Retrieved 30 August 2015, from
http://berkeleysciencereview.com/article/good-bad-hela/
Kegley, J. A. K. (2004). Challenges to Informed Consent. EMBO Reports, 832–836.
Pozgar, G. D., & Santucci, N. M. (2012). Legal Aspects of Health Care Administration. Jones
and Bartlett Publishers.
Skloot, R. (2011). The immortal life of Henrietta Lacks. New York: Broadway Paperbacks.
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