Petra on hiatus but getting better.Happy New 2024!'s Reviews> The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
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Petra on hiatus but getting better.Happy New 2024!'s review
bookshelves: popculture-anthropology, reviewed, 10-star-books
Nov 21, 2010
bookshelves: popculture-anthropology, reviewed, 10-star-books
This is an all-gold ten-star read!
It's actually two stories, the story of the HeLa cells and the story of the Lacks family told by a journalist who writes the first story objectively and the second, in which she is involved, subjectively. The contrast between the poor Lacks family who cannot afford their medical bills and the research establishment who have made millions, maybe billions from these cells is ironic and tragic. It has been established by other law cases that if the family had gone for restitution they would not have got it, but that's a moot point as they couldn't afford a lawyer in any case.
I have seen some bad reviews about this book. People who think that the story of the Lacks - poor rural African-Americans who never made it 'up' from slavery and whose lifestyle of decent working class folk that also involves incest, adultery, disease and crime, they just dismiss with 'heard it all before' and 'my family despite all obstacles succeeded so what is wrong with the Lacks?' I wonder if these people who not only totally can't see the wonderful writing that brings these people to life and who so lack in compassion themselves are the sort of people who oppose health care for the masses? As an extremely wealthy American tourist once put it to me, he had earned good health care by his hard work and success in life, it was one of the perks, why waste good money on, say, a a triple-bypass on someone who hasn't even succeeded enough to afford health insurance? That they were a drain on society, non-contributors and not the way America needed to go to move forward.
I don't think you can rate people by what they have achieved materially. Success depends a great deal on opportunity and many don't have that. Henrietta Lacks didn't have it and her children didn't have it, not even her grandchildren made much of a way for themselves, but the next generation, the great grandchildren - ah now they are going in for Masters degrees and maybe their children will be major contributors. The author intends to recompense the family by setting up a scholarship for at least one of them. All of us came originally from poverty and to put down those that are still mired in the quicksand of never having enough spare cash to finance an education is cruel, uncompassionate and hardly looking to the future.
HeLa cells have given us our future. They are the most researched and tested human cells in existence. All of us have benefited from the medical advances made using them and the book is recognition of what a great contribution Henrietta Lacks and her family with all their donations of tissue and blood, mostly stolen from them under false pretences, have made. Indeed one of the researchers who looks like having told a lot of lies (and then lied about that) in order to get the family to donate blood to further her research is still trying to get them to donate more. She's a hard-nosed scientist, with an excellent job and income and to her the Lacks are no more than providers of raw material.
Sometimes you can't make hard and fast rulings. No I don't think we should have to give informed consent for experiments to be done on tissue or blood donated during a procedure or childbirth - that would slow medical research unbearably. I don't think cells should be identifiable with the donor either, it should be quite anonymous (as it now is). However, there is only ever one 'first' in any sphere and that one does deserve recognition and now with the book, some 50 years after her life ended, Henrietta Lacks has it. Good on yer, Rebecca Skloot, you've done a good thing here.
It's actually two stories, the story of the HeLa cells and the story of the Lacks family told by a journalist who writes the first story objectively and the second, in which she is involved, subjectively. The contrast between the poor Lacks family who cannot afford their medical bills and the research establishment who have made millions, maybe billions from these cells is ironic and tragic. It has been established by other law cases that if the family had gone for restitution they would not have got it, but that's a moot point as they couldn't afford a lawyer in any case.
I have seen some bad reviews about this book. People who think that the story of the Lacks - poor rural African-Americans who never made it 'up' from slavery and whose lifestyle of decent working class folk that also involves incest, adultery, disease and crime, they just dismiss with 'heard it all before' and 'my family despite all obstacles succeeded so what is wrong with the Lacks?' I wonder if these people who not only totally can't see the wonderful writing that brings these people to life and who so lack in compassion themselves are the sort of people who oppose health care for the masses? As an extremely wealthy American tourist once put it to me, he had earned good health care by his hard work and success in life, it was one of the perks, why waste good money on, say, a a triple-bypass on someone who hasn't even succeeded enough to afford health insurance? That they were a drain on society, non-contributors and not the way America needed to go to move forward.
I don't think you can rate people by what they have achieved materially. Success depends a great deal on opportunity and many don't have that. Henrietta Lacks didn't have it and her children didn't have it, not even her grandchildren made much of a way for themselves, but the next generation, the great grandchildren - ah now they are going in for Masters degrees and maybe their children will be major contributors. The author intends to recompense the family by setting up a scholarship for at least one of them. All of us came originally from poverty and to put down those that are still mired in the quicksand of never having enough spare cash to finance an education is cruel, uncompassionate and hardly looking to the future.
HeLa cells have given us our future. They are the most researched and tested human cells in existence. All of us have benefited from the medical advances made using them and the book is recognition of what a great contribution Henrietta Lacks and her family with all their donations of tissue and blood, mostly stolen from them under false pretences, have made. Indeed one of the researchers who looks like having told a lot of lies (and then lied about that) in order to get the family to donate blood to further her research is still trying to get them to donate more. She's a hard-nosed scientist, with an excellent job and income and to her the Lacks are no more than providers of raw material.
Sometimes you can't make hard and fast rulings. No I don't think we should have to give informed consent for experiments to be done on tissue or blood donated during a procedure or childbirth - that would slow medical research unbearably. I don't think cells should be identifiable with the donor either, it should be quite anonymous (as it now is). However, there is only ever one 'first' in any sphere and that one does deserve recognition and now with the book, some 50 years after her life ended, Henrietta Lacks has it. Good on yer, Rebecca Skloot, you've done a good thing here.
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Reading Progress
November 18, 2010
–
Started Reading
November 21, 2010
– Shelved
November 21, 2010
– Shelved as:
popculture-anthropology
November 21, 2010
–
Finished Reading
May 5, 2015
– Shelved as:
reviewed
June 12, 2016
– Shelved as:
10-star-books
Comments Showing 1-50 of 97 (97 new)
message 1:
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Cynthia
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Jan 17, 2011 10:31PM
![Cynthia](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1317006297p1/750578.jpg)
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Agreed, Cynthia. Unfortunately, we (scientific/medical/psychiatric professions) haven't been either as respectful or as forthright as we need to be. Going through the IRB process is tedious, but I sleep better knowing that my common sense about research is backed up by a local committee and federal policy.
![Petra on hiatus but getting better.Happy New 2024!](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1704124199p1/1237196.jpg)
![kwesi 章英狮](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1673799892p1/4218875.jpg)
![Lisa Vegan](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1243394822p1/83445.jpg)
Somebody has to be deceived to get into a bookstore?!?! What a foreign concept.;-)
![Ben](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1295056590p1/4811790.jpg)
![Ben](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1295056590p1/4811790.jpg)
That part.
![Nancy](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1232425476p1/1930214.jpg)
message 11:
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Petra on hiatus but getting better.Happy New 2024!
(last edited May 29, 2011 09:47AM)
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rated it5stars
![Petra on hiatus but getting better.Happy New 2024!](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1704124199p1/1237196.jpg)
I'm not an American. There are self-serving snobs in all nations, but the majority of people are good-hearted. Since the Lacks' day, the US has come all the way to Obama. Not ugly Americans at all.
![Nancy](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1232425476p1/1930214.jpg)
![Petra on hiatus but getting better.Happy New 2024!](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1704124199p1/1237196.jpg)
![Nancy](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1232425476p1/1930214.jpg)
![Janice](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1403157468p1/2083208.jpg)
![Petra on hiatus but getting better.Happy New 2024!](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1704124199p1/1237196.jpg)
The man who said that to me was a tourist who was buying books in my shop.
![Jim](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1315759484p1/4089478.jpg)
I first heard of HeLa cells in a lecture from my first cell biology class. We were told the cells came from Helen Lane, just as Skloot describes it. My wife was told the same in her classes, a decade later (she in the mid-80s).
You might be interested in the current citation list for HeLa cells - peer-reviewed journal papers, nearly all of which used the cells in some or all of the experiments:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed?te...
The list is nearing 71,000 papers as I write this(!) A pretty incredible legacy for one person to leave to the world.
![Petra on hiatus but getting better.Happy New 2024!](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1704124199p1/1237196.jpg)
I first heard of HeLa cells in a lecture from my first cell biology class. We were told th... "
Thank you for this info Jim. Very interesting. It's actually over 72,000 now!
![Jim](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1315759484p1/4089478.jpg)
I really enjoyed your review - just looked over it again. One day, I will sit down and write one of my own.:)
![Petra on hiatus but getting better.Happy New 2024!](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1704124199p1/1237196.jpg)
I really enjoyed your review - just looked over it again. One day, I will sit down and write one of my own.:) "
All the discussions I was following stopped getting followed with the big changeover recently so I only find comments on reviews by accident, I don't normally take months to respond! Let me know when you review the book.
![Jim](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1315759484p1/4089478.jpg)
I will do, Petra, and thanks for the kind words! I have had many problems with notifications as well, and they do create some awkward and unfortunate situations.:)
![Lisa Vegan](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1243394822p1/83445.jpg)
Ditto. What's scary is that I don't even know what I might still be missing!
![Jim](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1315759484p1/4089478.jpg)
Yes indeed. Just what we all need, a little more anxiety in our lives, right?
My sense is that they are still tinkering with the notifications engine, because I see subtle changes in the way things come up. But it is certainly a problem - still.
Oh well. Nice to get messages through when we do get on the same page! And nice to hear from you, Petra and Lisa.:D
![Petra on hiatus but getting better.Happy New 2024!](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1704124199p1/1237196.jpg)
![Petra on hiatus but getting better.Happy New 2024!](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1704124199p1/1237196.jpg)
Thank you Emily. Don't be fooled by the name change, I'm still Petra, ex-Xanga.
![Petra on hiatus but getting better.Happy New 2024!](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1704124199p1/1237196.jpg)
That's very nice of you Henry. Especially considering how good your own reviews are.
![Mona](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1672515515p1/7020601.jpg)
![Petra on hiatus but getting better.Happy New 2024!](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1704124199p1/1237196.jpg)
It isn't America alone. I'm not an American and it's not much different in the UK and the island I live on is going that way too. With corruption.
![Petra on hiatus but getting better.Happy New 2024!](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1704124199p1/1237196.jpg)
![Petra on hiatus but getting better.Happy New 2024!](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1704124199p1/1237196.jpg)
That should be existence. Stupid spellchecker. "
Spellcheckers are like Google, but worse, they guess what you want to say but rarely with any accuracy. It is a good book, a great one actually.
![Tom Mathews](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1601835093p1/22063432.jpg)
You've just bumped this up to the point where I will buy a copy. I have a daughter who wants to become a geneticist and I think this would be an excellent book for both of us.
![Petra on hiatus but getting better.Happy New 2024!](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1704124199p1/1237196.jpg)
I hope you both enjoy it. We all, everyone one of us who has had any contact with Western medicine and perhaps more, owe a great deal to Henrietta Lacks.
![Ioana](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1505655996p1/1721356.jpg)
Great review!!!
Petra X...this review just came on my feed, and I am so glad that it did...this is a book I already had on my list to read...such a wonderful review to read about it...I did so much reading about the book so I know what it is about, but your review and your thoughts on it are so parallel with mine.
message 45:
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Petra on hiatus but getting better.Happy New 2024!
(last edited Jun 15, 2016 08:17AM)
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rated it5stars
![Petra on hiatus but getting better.Happy New 2024!](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1704124199p1/1237196.jpg)
Is there something about their Jewishness that makes them less ethical and more defiant?
![Ioana](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1505655996p1/1721356.jpg)
If I write that ther... "
Hey Petra - sorry, didn't mean to imply you mentioned them being Jewish (that's something that stood out to me). Skloot writes, "three young Jewish doctors refused, saying they wouldn't conduct research on patients without their consent. All three knew about the research Nazis had done on Jewish prisoners. They also knew about the famous Nuremberg Trials". (p. 130)
So I think what struck me is that, the population of US doctors SHOULD have known about Nuremberg, this happened AFTER the Holocaust was exposed (and yet, it took "three young Jewish doctors" as Skloot wrote, to realize the parallels)... and also what struck me is the horrible, awful irony of these young Jewish doctors being asked to replicate similar ethics. Basically, I was surprised it took all THAT for us in the US to realize (and only thanks to these three doctors!) that uninformed patient experimentation was so unethical.
I used the word defy and I realize it maybe sounded negative - not at all - they defied the horrible status quo of injecting cancer into unsuspecting patients and ushered in the era of informed consent.
![Cecily](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1480285828p1/1199525.jpg)
Occasional recirculation is good, imo. It gives a second chance, and given the flakiness of the daily email of friends' updates, I'm glad. (I'm not so keen on those who recirculate a review every day for a week, but that's not you.)
Cecily wrote: "Petra X wrote:" I didn't mean to send this old review to my feed yesterday. All I did was add it to the 10-star books shelf and..... "
Occasional recirculation is good, imo. It gives a second chan... "
Yeah...what is up with that...why do some people recirculate reviews?
Occasional recirculation is good, imo. It gives a second chan... "
Yeah...what is up with that...why do some people recirculate reviews?
![Petra on hiatus but getting better.Happy New 2024!](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1704124199p1/1237196.jpg)
Could be many reasons. We all use GR our own way. I like to see comments on mine/other people's reviews as it's conversations people might join in, or I might. That would send a review back to the feed. Then there is the reshelving 'bug' which sometimes sends reviews back if the shelf is changed. Editing as well. Lots of reasons.
![Athena](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1443917046p1/16891485.jpg)
Excellent review! Seems like on your little island you've been exposed to more than the normal number of Ugly Americans.. in this case I'd say ugly & stupid, desperately clinging to the shreds of Social Darwinism so he can pretend he's "better than" instead of the recipient of random fate, positive in his case. I've been down, I've been up, and go into old age less well-positioned than my parents: the vagaries of fate, things beyond my control, are responsible for each situation. I worked my ass off & did well, my step-sister worked her ass off and did not: neither of us, as Americans, are anywhere near as well-off as our parents... too bad I couldn't have been in that conversation you had with Ugly American!;)