The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

“I’ve spent years staring at [Henrietta’s] photo, wondering what kind of life she led, what happened to her children, and what she’d think about cells from her cervix living on forever—bought, sold, packaged, and shipped by the trillions to laboratories around the world.” 

Skloot’s curiosity is the catalyst for the book. Immediately, she questions the ethics of selling a person’s cells before she’s even aware that Henrietta didn’t give her informed consent. Her reaction speaks to the ethical indifference of the scientific community, as there’s no indication that they even considered Henrietta’s feelings on the matter—instead, they dehumanized her for the good of their research.

“The Lackses challenged everything I thought I knew about faith, science, journalism, and race.” 

Skloot, by her own admission, develops as a character through her encounters with the Lackses. In this passage, she’s likely referring to the emotional ties the Lackses placed on what she had previously considered concrete truths. While to science a tissue sample is just a tissue sample, the Lackses believed it was an extension of their mother. While the medical community claimed to give equal treatment to all races, African Americans were clearly less valued and often exploited. While cancer tissue cells may not seem to be of religious significance, to the Lackses they’re a form of Henrietta’s angelic healing.

“Like many doctors of his era, (Richard Wesley) TeLinde 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.” 

This passage develops the theme of Racism in the Medical Community. The poor, largely black, community that used the public wards were dehumanized for the purpose of research. It’s ironic that, in order to get medical attention, they were expected to risk their physical health for the sake of research.