Henrietta Lacks Research Paper

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

In the book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks written by Rebecca Skloot, Skloot is a young white woman that becomes fascinated by Henrietta Lacks when she learns of her in a community college biology class. Henrietta Lacks was a young black woman who was never spoken of. She was diagnosed with cervical cancer at the age of thirty. When she received treatment for that cancer doctors unknowingly stole her cervical cells. These cells were named HeLa. In Skloots book she states, “Scientists had been trying to keep human cells alive in culture for decades, but they all eventually died. Henrietta’s were different: they reproduced an entire generation every twenty-four hours, and they never stopped. They
Most educated patients have a tendency to be more devoted in their treatment, they work with their doctors toward finding treatments, rather then presuming their doctors will give them a prescription to make them feel completely cured. There are also times when patients have to make decisions for themselves, like when to go to the hospital or take their medication. Patients can not always rely on doctors for everything. For patients being better educated about health conditions helps them feel more powerful and less dependent on doctors. For patients without education it is a very different outlook. They are not always involved with there health care, and let the doctors find the treatments for them. Some patients do assume that the medication they are taking will cure them. Although sometimes that’s not the case. Education is also important for the patients family. Henrietta Lacks daughter Deborah was deeply affected by her mothers death. She had already grieved her mothers loss. Then one day she’s learns to her understanding that Henrietta’s cells, HeLa, were still alive. No less immortal. No one would explain to Deborah what a cell was. So she had to teach herself by reading basic science text books and a dictionary. But the more she read the more she struggled to comprehend. Not being able to comprehend her mothers cells made her fearful. It made her wonder if she was going to die at a young age like her mother. Deborah was also terrified by what researchers were doing with her mothers cells, “When she saw a NewsWeek article called