BACKGROUND
humble beginnings
Henrietta Lacks
(Nature Publishing Group, 2013) |
Who is she?"I've spent years staring at that 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." -Rebecca Skloot (1) She was born "Loretta Pleasant", and the media mistakenly called her "Henrietta Lakes", "Helen Lane", and "Helen Larson". Now, the world knows her true identity: Henrietta Lacks. |
THE APPOINTMENT"David drove Henrietta nearly twenty miles to get [to Hopkins], not because they preferred it, but because it was the only major hospital for miles that treated black patients. This was the era of Jim Crow." Johns Hopkins Hospital
(Johns Hopkins University) Henrietta Lacks visited Johns Hopkins seeking treatment for a "knot" in her body; she was diagnosed with cervical cancer. Without consent, the doctor took her cervical cell sample and discovered it was "immortal." |
FamilyThe Lacks family lived under racial and financial hardship. After her mother died, Henrietta's father sent the children to Clover, Virginia.
"She's the most important person in the world and her family is living in poverty. If our mother is so important to science, why can't we get health insurance?" "But I always have thought it was strange, if our mother cells done so much for medicine, how come her family can’t afford to see no doctors? Don’t make no sense. People got rich off my mother without us even knowin about them takin her cells, now we don’t get a dime." At twenty years old, Henrietta married her cousin David.
Henrietta Lacks and her husband, David Lacks, circa 1945
(Nature Publishing Group, 2013) |
Source:
(1) Rebecca Skloot, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
(1) Rebecca Skloot, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
Michael Abelar, Taseen Alam, Tiffany Paul, Varun Sudabathula, Angela Zhao
Henrietta Lacks: Ordinary Woman With Extraordinary Cells
Senior Group Website
Word Count (Website): 1198
Word Count (Process Paper): 497
Henrietta Lacks: Ordinary Woman With Extraordinary Cells
Senior Group Website
Word Count (Website): 1198
Word Count (Process Paper): 497
Proudly powered by Weebly