I've always been curious about the cells that are referred to as HeLa. I had always wondered where and how they came to be. I am quite surprised that it has taken this long to finally write about the history of these amazing cells. The “Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks” explains all this.
Rebecca Skloot set out to write a book about the cells that Johns Hopkins researchers harvested from a tumor that killed a young African-American woman named Henrietta Lacks in the 1950s. Those cells, known as HeLa, had a life of their own. They were fruitful and multiplied, they traveled around the world, and they provided science with the source of scores of life-saving discoveries (Polio for one). During the course of investigating science's use of those cells, Skloot found a much better story, one that begins with the researchers' failure to inform Henrietta's family of what they were doing. As a result of this, the family did not discover the cells existed until decades later.
This story will incite, shock and awe you when you come to learn the story of the Lacks family and their victimization by socioeconomic conditions, racism and how these cells have made tons of money for the health establishment and yet most of the Lacks family are unable to afford health coverage.
The author has done an extensive research job in putting together this book. The afterword notes that it took 10 years to complete the book. The science is easily understood by the average reader, the family story is enhanced by the author's patient relationship with the family of Henrietta.
What impressed me most about this book was the way the author presented the story in a non judgmental way. Both the family and especially the medical establishment committed acts that did no one proud. Skloot is not condescending nor patronizing to the Lacks family nor does she condemn the medical establishment. It would have been easy to sensationalize this story but she didn't, she just calmly and in a very fair and straightforward way reported it.
The human race owes Henrietta Lacks a debt that it will never be able to repay. This is a book that should be required reading in all of our schools.
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