Case Study: The Henrietta Lacks

The Henrietta Lacks case brings up a lot of different issues, most of which have to do with ethical dilemmas. First off, Henrietta is an African American woman who came from a poor part of Virginia and was poorly educated and, unfortunately, so was most of her family. Where she grew up was mostly full of members of her family and ended up marrying her cousin, Day, now that is a heavily frowned upon in mainstream society but where she grew up it was normal. She and Day eventually moved to Baltimore, Maryland with their children. Baltimore, at the time, was heavily segregated and racism ran rampant. When she went in to John Hopkins medical center for her first treatment of her misdiagnosed cancer her doctor, without her knowledge, cut a small sliver of her tumor off and gave it to George Gey. Gey then took that sample and produced the first continuously reproducing human cell culture and culture medium to keep them going. After she had died, Gey sent an assistant to get another sliver from her corpse which ultimately failed to produce the same results, but after she had passed Day had only given permission for an autopsy. Eventually,
Skloot discusses this issue in her 2006 New York Times article “Taking the Least of You”. Boiled down to the core points when that piece of you is attached to you, you own it. When you know you have an important blood line or gene or bodily reaction, you own it and you can make money off of it. Otherwise, you don’t and you can’t. Once it leaves your body or you are not informed of any specific reactions or genes, you do not get a say in what happens, at least that is the stance the law takes at this point. Personally, I do not feel it should matter whether or not they take them from you, those “scraps” still have your genetic sequence, you should still have a say. Unfortunately, not very many researchers, law makers, or doctors would