She Took Justice: The Black Woman, Law, and Power – 1619 to 1969 by Gloria J. Browne-Marshall

Author:Gloria J. Browne-Marshall [Browne-Marshall, Gloria J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Ethnic Studies, Women in Politics, Constitutional, American, Black Studies (Global), Slavery, Discrimination, Civil Rights, Social Science, African American & Black Studies, Political Science, Women's Studies, Law
ISBN: 9781000283556
Google: 0zsKEAAAQBAJ
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2021-01-01T13:46:45+00:00

Henrietta Lacks: Cancer Cells Stolen

Mrs. Lacks was dying of cervical cancer when she became a medical experiment at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore. She was born Loretta Pleasant in Roanoke, Virginia, on August 1, 1920. By age four, her mother had died and her father took her to live with her grandfather. When Henrietta Lacks died of cancer on October 4, 1951, she did not know that her cancer cells would travel to the moon and around the world.42 Her cancer cells were harvested without her permission and used without the permission of her family. The cancer cells taken from Henrietta Lacks, known as HeLa, are so potent that medical science considers them immortal. Upon discovering the unique qualities of the cancer cells growing inside of Henrietta Lacks, researchers at Johns Hopkins took them.

Researchers had long dreamed of one day finding human cells capable of living outside of the body. This medical trespass of Lacks’s body, a harvesting of her cells, would benefit researchers at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and go on to serve universities, scientists, students, patients, and corporations around the world for decades to come. However, Henrietta’s treatment for the cancer that was killing her would be secondary. She was reduced to a medical experiment.43

On January 29, 1951, Henrietta Lacks went to Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland. She had pain from “a knot” in her womb.44 Doctor Howard Jones at Johns Hopkins noted in the file that Henrietta was the mother of five who had been treated several times for gonorrhea and syphilis, diseases attributable to the affairs of her husband, David Lacks. She was examined and a biopsy or tissue sample taken for testing. On February 5, 1951, Henrietta Lacks was diagnosed with cervical cancer, officially known as epidermoid carcinoma of the cervix, Stage I.45 Upon her return she was given the state-of-the-art treatment for that era. Radiation tubes were placed inside her cervix. Prior to the procedure, tissue samples were taken from her tumor to be incubated with hopes the cells would grow. Those samples were harvested without her consent or knowledge.46

After two days of radiation treatment at Johns Hopkins, Henrietta was sent home. The cancer cells continued to grow in the laboratory, and inside the body of Henrietta Lacks. Her pain was unbearable. Henrietta’s cells grew unlike any known human cells.47 George Gey, a Hopkins researcher, was ecstatic with his finding. He passed the cells on to other researchers. HeLa cells were sent to laboratories in Texas, Colorado, New York, India, Amsterdam, and Chile.48 Lacks’s cells were even the subject of researchers at the Public Health Center at Tuskegee University, a Black college, founded by Dr. Booker T. Washington, located in the small town of Tuskegee in Alabama. They experimented with the HeLa cells while conducting the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment.

The last days of Henrietta Lacks were filled with excruciating pain. Analgesics were her only relief.49 More thought was given to her everlasting cancer cells than the human being dying of cancer. Not until decades later would her children discover, by accident, about their mother’s famous cells.

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