The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks (Part 2)

Even after Henrietta Lacks was defeated by her cancer, her body was still placed in a “...’colored’ freezer” (Skloot 157). Although parts one and two of the book do not explicitly criticize doctors or scientists for treating Henrietta differently due to her skin color, there is enough historical evidence to conclude that her story is greatly influenced by the idea of race. Even after death, her body was not allowed to be placed near a white body. As soon as Doctors in Johns Hopkins Hospital learned of Henrietta’s death, they wanted to take samples from the rest of her body. The permission to perform an autopsy needed to be given by her husband who had to request that they do not damage Henrietta’s upper body so that she could be presented at her funeral. When one of Dr. Gey’s assistants saw Henrietta’s body on the autopsy table, she realized that she never came to terms with the fact that the cells that they had been working with “...came from a live woman” (Skloot 160). She had not come to this realization fully until noticing Henrietta’s chipped toenail polish. To Henrietta’s family, they had lost a loving relative, but to the scientists and doctors, great discoveries were about to be gained through the HeLa cells, and shortly after her death “...planning began for the HeLa factory” (Skloot 164). HeLa cells were distributed in mass quantities to study polio, and propel the growing field of virology. The cells were even used to replace “...laboratory animals to test whether new products and drugs caused cellular damage” (Skloot 180). No one ever wondered about the human whose cells were being used until “HeLa became a ‘general scientific property’” (Skloot 184). Henrietta's cells provided endless research for the science field and gained attention throughout the country. However, her children grew up hungry and abused in her absence. Not only were Henrietta's cells being used for new scientific breakthroughs without any compensation given to her family, but the cells were also being used for experiments that proved to be extremely controversial. HeLa cells were being injected into patients who were unaware that they were being given cancerous cells, and neither Henrietta or her family had given consent for this fate of her cells.