Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

Henrietta Lacks died in 1954. Cancer took her body and her life when she had five young children. Doctors took her cells when she was dying. They didn't tell her or her family for twenty years. Those cells are still alive, still multiplying, still being shipped around the world. If part of her is still alive, even when two of her children, her husband, her hometown and a good number of her family are dead, is Henrietta still alive?

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks is about science and medicine. It's about race, sex and inequity. But mostly it's about a daughter's search for knowledge.

I won't go into the science behind Henrietta's story, partly because it's all explained in the book, partly because it's kind of weird, but mostly because I only kind of understand it. There is so many different ways to look at the case of HeLa, Henrietta and the Lacks family, that I will focus my thoughts on the ones that I can actually talk about without needing a textbook.

There are so many questions about Johns Hopkins and Henrietta. If she had had more money, if she had white skin, if she had a penis, would she have survived her cancer? Would Johns Hopkins taken her cells and told no one? Would they have asked first? Would the family have been compensated?

Of course, the answers to those questions are unknowable. I do think she probably would have died no matter her circumstance. Her cancer was so invasive, so malignant, that it was the first living cells to be cultured. That says something about what she was living with. She might have lived longer, but I don't think she could have survived, at least not in the 50s.

I could probably write a paper about the social justice implications in Henrietta's life, death, and continued life. But why should I, when Rebecca Skloot wrote a whole book about it?

Skloot's book is amazing. The way she describes the Lacks' lives is beautiful. It's a factual account that reads like a novelization. It's the novel-readers science book. She almost makes you forget that all of these people are real. Almost.

Skloot opens the book with the intention of writing about the science of HeLa, but instead focuses on her family. You can feel how Deborah affected Skloot. My only complaint is that I wish there was more information about Elsie, but I'm not sure that would have been possible, considering the circumstances.

The book highlights the stark contrast between medicine in the 50s and today. Could this happen today? The answer is, of course, yes. And it probably has, though not to the extent described in the book. Skloot makes sure to assure her readers that although confidentiality and ethics have improved by leaps and bounds, what Hopkins did to Henrietta is still completely legal.