Henrietta Lacks

Happy Friday!

Yesterday night, I went up to the Central District in Seattle to attend a lecture series put on by Seattle University's 'Center for the Study of Justice in Society'. The conversation was with David (Sonny) Lacks, son of Henrietta Lacks who unknowingly donated the HeLa Cells that have made Modern Medicine what it is today. My fascination with Henrietta Lacks started a year or two ago when I saw the book at the University bookstore. I kept trying to buy it and read it, but something always seemed to distract me. Then last September, I finally took the plunge and bought it on my Kindle. I read it in less than a week; I was hooked. Quickly, the book tells a true story of a woman who died at the age of 31 of cervical cancer. Being a black women with a poor economic background, she got seperate and un'equal' health care from John Hopkins. At the time she went in for care, they took some of her cancer cells and attempted to grow them in a petri dish. Scientists had not yet been able to get human cells to grow outside of a human body and for some mysterious reason, Henrietta's did. Her cells ended up helping all medical developments/cosmetic developments (anything used on a human) for the last 50 years. Her cells also grew into a multi-million dollar industry, being sold by medical supplies to scieentists and researchers. The family has been mostly unaware of this and uncompensated, bringing up many issues of  patent laws, consent for research and healthcare for all. For more detailed information and background, go here (a video).

So the talk was Question and Answer session between David (Sonny) Lacks and another women. The crowd was a mix between African Americans and White ethnicites, although being in Seattle there was a very liberal air to talk. I just wanted to share some parts of the talk that I found good/interesting. The issue is extremely complex, and if you read the book you will probably be like "hmm....eh, I agree but like not really."

1) The introduction of the HeLa cell put the Polio Vaccine ahead by 5-10 years.

2) Her cells were essential to create Gardasil, the vaccination that essentially eliminates the HPV that killed Henrietta Lacks in the first place (Thank you Henrietta Lacks!!)

3) Mr. Lacks was talking about watching her mothers cancer cells under a microscope approach another cell in a petri dish and overtake that cell, and begin to divide. Mr. Lacks describes this as "My mother had attitude after death. She doesn't want anyone invading her space).

4) Mr. Lacks was talking about how racism was today "The world is now high-technology. Racism is just now high-tech."

These are just some of the highlights of the talk. There were also other issues that people tended to think were 'unfair' or 'outrages', but I didn't particularly think that was the case. It's hard to get a lot of people in a room who feel very personally affected by this and have an unbiased talk about all the issues surrounding such a complex, controversial issue. Overall, David Lacks was happy and proud that his mother has virtually saved/helped every person in the world by contributing greatly to modern medicine and vaccinations. Just something to think about when you are getting that next shot/ putting on that new layer of makeup.

Sorry for the long post!

Rachel