The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot *****

TheImmortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot tells two sad stories of the 1950s in the United States and the effects over the following half-century. The first story is about the Lacks family, poor, black, and uneducated. The second story is about the medical profession, powerful, privileged, and insensitive. Both stories chronicle some improvements, but neither one reaches a happy ending by the 21^st century.

In 1951, Henrietta Lacks was treated by Johns Hopkins in Baltimore. Following the practice at the time, George Gey was given a sample of her cells. He discovered, that unlike all other human cells, these cells were immortal—they would live and reproduce in a test tube indefinitely. These cells, called HeLa, are used internationally in medical research. The family didn’t learn about this until decades later. Personal note: when I worked in biotech, not two decades ago, we used HeLa cells.

The Lacks’ story starts during Jim Crow. Johns Hopkins had a black entrance, black restrooms, and black wards. The Lacks family was poor and uneducated. One of Henrietta’s children was sent to a Hospital for the Negro Insane and probably subjected to horrific experiments (pneumo-encephalography) until she died at fifteen. Other’s spent years in jail. The family suffered from numerous untreated medical and psychiatric conditions.

The research story starts with a factory that was set up to produce HeLa cells as part of the polio vaccine trials. Soon after this, entrepreneurs set up additional factories and grew these efforts into large, profitable biotech companies. The HeLa cell line was important to research that led to many profitable diagnostic tests and treatments. Throughout this time few people even wondered about the origin of these cells. Many people benefitted monetarily and medically, but not the Lacks family.

The medical research community would like to present itself as altruistic scientists. However, in the rush to advance their careers or profits, much of their work was sloppy and useless. Fifteen years after the discovery of HeLa cells, Stanley Gartler reported that most cell lines used in research were not what they claimed to be. (They were all HeLa cells.) This was not the work of altruistic science. This was self-interest, and much like the tobacco industry, the scientists defended themselves rather than work on correcting their mistakes.

To add insult to injury, Hela cells were not only used to profit scientists, but they were also used, following the tradition of the Nazi doctors, and the Tuskegee syphilis experiment, they were used for experiments on human subjects.

If you are interested in black history or medical ethics, this is an excellent book that puts faces to these topics with a minimum of judgment.

Check out https://amazon.com/shop/influencer-20171115075 for book recommendations.