The story of Henrietta Lacks is the foundation of modern medical ethics and humanistic treatment of patients worldwide, especially among minorities. After undergoing dangerous procedures during segregation at Johns Hopkins, Henrietta Lacks lost her cells and died a few months after the medical operation. The cells obtained by George Gay subsequently became a global medical discovery, becoming the first immortal cells to divide successfully outside the human body. These cells became the property of the international medical community and began to inhabit biological and medical laboratories around the world. Henrietta Lacks’ family, meanwhile, was mourning her loss and living their old lives, unaware of either the removal of the cells or their effects. It was not until the mid-1970s that Henrietta Lacks’ family learned what had happened, thanks to Rebecca Skloot and her ambition to write a book. Elie Weisel’s quotation at the beginning of the book connects the main narrative in the context of the abstraction of a kind giver and the context of Henrietta Lacks’ family.
The first citation context concerns how the story of Henrietta Lacks has developed for the international community. Despite the global nature of the discoveries made based on these cells, the other side of the coin was that people ceased to be aware that these cells were taken from someone by a doctor. The figure of Henrietta Lacks turned into an impersonal giver with no goals other than to serve science. It, says the author of the book and Henrietta’s relatives, had nothing to do with reality (Skloot). The doctors did not ask Henrietta’s permission to take the cells, and they did not report it after the fact. After her death, doctors did not contact relatives and did not share information. Segregation divided the then society into important and unimportant, where the experiences of the Lacks family came second. Henrietta Lacks, however, lived an ordinary life as a 30-year-old woman, raised children, and was a caring wife. Cancer forced her to change her lifestyle, but she did not lose hope for recovery and trusted the doctors, but they let her and her family down.
Another context for the quotation proposed at the beginning of the book remains the communication with relatives and descendants of Henrietta Lacks. Having met the daughter of Henrietta Lacks, the author turned to her for help and saw a distrustful woman (Skloot). The entire medical community deceived her mother, and she was subjected to the theft of her own body, from which the industry of genetics, space research, and vaccines was then created. Her dead mother became the property of the medical community, the pharmacological business, and the natural sciences; however, her family, in contrast, always lived poorly. This quote tells readers that there are people in Henrietta’s family who have the right to suffer and complain. The caustic desire for revenge is understandable to readers, as well as the distrustful attitude towards the book’s author at first. This family has skeletons in the closet, and for the last decades, they have lived without trust in society and the state. These people are not mute abstractions but living products of a committed crime, who are angry, offended, and bear the cross of betrayal altogether.
The opening quote tells the story of Henrietta Lacks, or HeLa, from two angles. On the first side is an abstract giver, which never existed, as the author reveals. There has never been a kind cell donor, but a deceived specific woman only wanted to be cured of cancer because she had a beloved family that needed care. The second side represents the Henrietta Lacks family, very disappointed and distrustful people. Having buried their beloved wife and mother, these people did not know for 25 years that Henrietta continued to live and benefit the world. They are angry and have every right to be, and their distrust is fully justified. Their unique history may be incomprehensible, but this does not give anyone the right to disrespect them or Henrietta’s memory.
Reference
Skloot, Rebecca. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. SparkNotes, 2020.