THE IMMORTAL LIFE OF HENRIETTA LACKS
BY REBECCA SKLOOT
KMPT Vermeulen | I6246365
Maastricht University | Faculty of Health, Medicine and Life Sciences
International Classroom: Sapere Aude 2122 | GZW2225
11-04-2022
1
, Outline and audience
Last week we as students studied the book ‘’The immortal life of Henrietta Lacks’’ written by
science journalist Rebecca Skloot. In this story, Rebecca delves into the history of the world-
famous ‘HeLa cells’, hearing and experiencing many remarkable things during her journey
and eventually becoming an important aspect of the story herself.
To start of with, the story is mainly about (in)justice, racism and money somewhat too.
Henrietta Lacks, the main reason the book was written, was an African-American woman who
died of cervical cancer on October 4, 1951. During her agony biopsies were taken from her
cervix. This basically means that a piece of tissue is taken. In this case, cells are taken from
the tumor that grew inside her. These tumor cells have a property that they can continue to
divide uninhibited, even when they are outside the body. This unique feature was like a
finding a treasure chest for the medical and science world. Hence, these cells were sold
worldwide and given to medical, scientific and physics centers. These cells ultimately
contributed greatly to the medical knowledge we have today. And they will probably continue
to do so for years to come.
Why justice and injustice is so important in this book, is because the relatives and
descendants of Henrietta Lacks, due to accumulation of events, have the feeling that they
were badly mistreated at the time. They claim that the doctors back then just took body tissues
without asking permission and sold them for huge sums worldwide, without the Lacks family
ever seeing or receiving a dollar of it. However, this is an aspect of much debate. The sneaky
thing about this was that this duplicating and sales process happened behind the back of the
family and they eventually found out themselves. This causes a lot of anger among the Lacks
family because they can not even afford to see a doctor. Gradually, the family learns more and
more about their deceased mother’s cells with the help of Rebecca Skloot, who carries a
biological-scientific background. This injustice is closely related to racism aspect. Back in the
fifties or sixties when Henrietta was also undergoing her treatments, there was a dichotomy in
the United States. Black people were severely mistreated, verbally abused and white people
looked down on them. They were seen as inferior, as it were. However at the time it seemed
quite normal, although slavery had long been abolished. People of color were also
disadvantaged in the field of medical care. For example, they often receive different
medications than white people and operations, administrations and therapies differed. Black
people were generally taken less seriously, they were given separate wards at hospitals and
often had to join the very end of the queue, even if the disease was very acute, then a white
2
BY REBECCA SKLOOT
KMPT Vermeulen | I6246365
Maastricht University | Faculty of Health, Medicine and Life Sciences
International Classroom: Sapere Aude 2122 | GZW2225
11-04-2022
1
, Outline and audience
Last week we as students studied the book ‘’The immortal life of Henrietta Lacks’’ written by
science journalist Rebecca Skloot. In this story, Rebecca delves into the history of the world-
famous ‘HeLa cells’, hearing and experiencing many remarkable things during her journey
and eventually becoming an important aspect of the story herself.
To start of with, the story is mainly about (in)justice, racism and money somewhat too.
Henrietta Lacks, the main reason the book was written, was an African-American woman who
died of cervical cancer on October 4, 1951. During her agony biopsies were taken from her
cervix. This basically means that a piece of tissue is taken. In this case, cells are taken from
the tumor that grew inside her. These tumor cells have a property that they can continue to
divide uninhibited, even when they are outside the body. This unique feature was like a
finding a treasure chest for the medical and science world. Hence, these cells were sold
worldwide and given to medical, scientific and physics centers. These cells ultimately
contributed greatly to the medical knowledge we have today. And they will probably continue
to do so for years to come.
Why justice and injustice is so important in this book, is because the relatives and
descendants of Henrietta Lacks, due to accumulation of events, have the feeling that they
were badly mistreated at the time. They claim that the doctors back then just took body tissues
without asking permission and sold them for huge sums worldwide, without the Lacks family
ever seeing or receiving a dollar of it. However, this is an aspect of much debate. The sneaky
thing about this was that this duplicating and sales process happened behind the back of the
family and they eventually found out themselves. This causes a lot of anger among the Lacks
family because they can not even afford to see a doctor. Gradually, the family learns more and
more about their deceased mother’s cells with the help of Rebecca Skloot, who carries a
biological-scientific background. This injustice is closely related to racism aspect. Back in the
fifties or sixties when Henrietta was also undergoing her treatments, there was a dichotomy in
the United States. Black people were severely mistreated, verbally abused and white people
looked down on them. They were seen as inferior, as it were. However at the time it seemed
quite normal, although slavery had long been abolished. People of color were also
disadvantaged in the field of medical care. For example, they often receive different
medications than white people and operations, administrations and therapies differed. Black
people were generally taken less seriously, they were given separate wards at hospitals and
often had to join the very end of the queue, even if the disease was very acute, then a white
2
