Her name was Henrietta Lacks, but scientists know her as HeLa. Ms. Scott has been an academic researcher and editor for over 22 years, working both in a University setting and as a very successful freelancer. They are used for research on cloning, gene mapping and in vitro fertilization, as well as the effects of toxins, radiation, viruses, and carcinogens. To learn about her life, check out our blog The Life of Henrietta Lacks. http://www.nature.com/news/hela-publication-brews-bioethical-storm-1.12689. Instead, I discovered something of an unpleasant (if unsurprising) postscript: the Lacks family again needed to protest the public distribution of information about Henrietta. The Lacks family is, however, proud of how Henrietta contributed to science and now give talks about her (see rebeccaskloot.com for more information on how they’re fairing). What should you do, and how should you do it when using someone’s cells, in this instance, for research. It was something she had not considered before. And this is perhaps the most concerning theme that The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks reveals: thoughtlessness. He is the son of Henrietta Lacks, the woman who was the origin of the HeLa cell. 25 Feb. 2017. https://history.nih.gov/about/timelines_laws_human.html. As it happens, lördagsgodis’s roots can be traced to experiments performed on mentally ill patients during the mid- to late 1940s that established sugar’s role in cavity formation. Henrietta harvests cancer, and it seems like it is no big deal for her. We don’t know the answer, but here are some things to consider and maybe discuss with your friends, family, students. And more medical information was revealed about Henrietta without consulting the Lacks family. Sklootâs The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks tells the story of a 31-year-old African American woman who was treated for an aggressive form of cervical cancer in 1951 which she died of a year later. 2013 Autumn;56(4):548-67. doi: 10.1353/pbm.2013.0035. Further interactions with researchers did little to improve their understanding. Callaway, Ewen. Skloot, Rebecca. Henrietta Lacks, the Ethics of Consent is part two of a series. Because of the questionable ethics behind the use of her cells, Henrietta Lacks has not just been dubbed the “Mother of Modern Medicine”. It was an amazing moment for them. ( Log Out / Dr. Gey used part of Lacks’ name in the naming of the samples, without, again, her permission or that of her family. Change ). This African-American woman, who died in 1951, is the source of the famous HeLa cells. The New York Times, 23 Mar. Henrietta and her family never had a chance to say yes or no to how the cells from her tumor were used. Timeline of Laws Related to the Protection of Human Subjects. Rebecca Skloot wrote this article for the New York Times Magazine four years before the publication of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.The article looks at several cases of doctors taking patients' tissues and using them in medical research without the patients' knowledge or consent. The key in genetic counseling is to help with informed decision making. In 2013, the European Molecular Biology Laboratory published the genome of a line of HeLa cells to an online database that allowed public downloads of this data. Why or why not? She has also spend over 14 years as a Research Assistant for a Medical Anthropologist. How is it, then, that Mrs. Lacks’ family didn’t even know of this great ‘gift’ she gave to the world? This essay undertakes a retrospective ethical assessment of the Stateville malaria research during the 1940s in light of basic ethical principles and the Nuremberg Code, as well as contemporary malaria research. The importance of Henrietta’s cells (called HeLa) to scientific research is vast. She was a poor Southern tobacco farmer, yet her cells--taken without her knowledge--became one of the most important tools in medicine. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It's a basic requirement of ethical scientific research when human subjects are involved, something that we now take for granted thanks to things like the Nuremburg Code and the Helsinki Declaration. Mary Kubicek was an assistant who was sent to collect tissue samples during Henriettaâs autopsy in 1951. Rebecca Skoot's book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks discusses the ethical issues surrounding the use of HeLa cells. The study, which neither benefited its patients (quite the opposite) nor obtained their consent, was not unique to Sweden. 26 Feb. 2017. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/24/opinion/sunday/the-immortal-life-of-henrietta-lacks-the-sequel.html?_r=0. Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in: You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Such patients, particularly impoverished, poorly educated African-American patients living in the pre—Civil Rights era in the United States were unlikely to ask questions: the presumption that physicians “knew best” coupled with widespread racism alone prevented such a thing (Skloot 63). She died in 1955 (Skloot 274–6). Lacksâs story, set in the 1940s and 1950s, puts a human face on a bioethical issue, an example of the same structural injustices still at work in our society all these years later. 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