13 Ways of Looking at Henrietta Lacks Opened My Eyes

13 Ways of Looking at Henrietta Lacks provides us with interesting perspectives on how to fully account for what occurred to Henrietta Lacks and her cells. During class discussion these last two weeks, we have grappled with the idea of how to compensate her or her family, and whether compensation is something that is needed. Lantos looks at Henrietta’s situation from every angle and causes the reader to reexamine their first preconceptions of this story.  For me, I originally found the researchers to be at fault for the following reasons: they took her cells without her consent, did not inform her of the research that was being done on said cells, and exploited her cells after her death into a billion dollar business. After reading Lantos articles, I see another perspective concerning race. Previously, I felt that Johns Hopkins motive for exploiting Henrietta and refusing to inform the patient and receive consent for the work was due to the fact that Henrietta Lacks was a poor African-American woman.  However, in section 8 of the article entitled “The Beauty of Innuendos”, Lantos details the surprising information that she had been a victim to the same sort of unsound research that was being conducted on patients of all races in the 1950’s. He writes that “Such research exploited vulnerable and non-vulnerable patients alike. The clinic at Johns Hopkins where Mrs. Lacks was treated took biopsies from all its patients, white and black alike”.1 
I am swayed in that aspect after reading this and have fully dropped the ‘race’ motive on the physician’s end from my list of ways Henrietta Lacks was exploited and oppressed. 



1  John D. Lantos. "Thirteen Ways of Looking at Henrietta Lacks." Perspectives in Biology and Medicine 59, no. 2 (2016): 228-233. https://muse.jhu.edu/ (accessed April 5, 2018).