HeLa: the little cells that could

Book Review: "The Inmortal Life of Henrietta Lacks" by Rebecca Skloot

After listening to this interview on NPR, I just had to order it. What an amazing book! I just finished it and it is such compelling work. I highly recommend it! I just couldn't put it down.

One striking thing about it, is that even though is non-fiction, it is written in such a way that is absolutely fascinating and entertaining. Skloot is a superb writer and, in my humble opinion, she takes creative non-fiction writing to a new level. Her journalistic approach and her novelesque writing style makes it so easy for one as a reader to get lost in the story. There are so many compelling scientific and social issues that this book brings up that I don't even know where to where to begin.

As a Venezuelan living in the USA, this book has given me an opportunity to look at another way of how the ripples of slavery continue to have an effect in the Health Care System of this country. It has also lead me to reflect on my own culture and how social, racial and economic status continues to define whether a person has access to quality care or not. I was particularly shocked to learn how only until recently health providers haven't had any restrictions as to what they could do to patients. There just weren't any laws to protect them. The concept of Informed Consent was created much after a lot of invasive medical studies and experiments where performed in patients. Most of these terrible cases where of course, practiced on the African American community.

I am still processing a lot of the information that I learned from the book, but one question that keeps popping in my mind is: How far is it too far? I'm all for science moving forward and finding cures for deadly diseases but, At what expense? and most importantly, At who's expense?It is clear to me that in a lot of these cases, the physicians had no sense of respect and treated their patients and families like disposable rag dolls...

Oh! muy importante! Here's a link to the Henrietta Lack's Foundation. Please consider making a donation. If you're not convinced, here's an explanation of what the proceeds are for. I got this from the author's website:

"The Henrietta Lacks Foundation, [is] a non-profit organization founded by Rebecca Skloot, author of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. Henrietta was a poor black tobacco farmer whose cancer cells, taken without her knowledge, became one of the most important tools in medicine, with disastrous consequences for her family. Today, her family can’t afford the health care advances their mother’s cells helped make possible. The Henrietta Lacks Foundation will, among other things, provide financial assistance in the form of scholarships to the descendants of Henrietta Lacks; it will also work to provide the Lacks family aid in covering the cost of health insurance, giving those who have benefited from HeLa cells — including scientists, universities, corporations, and the general public — a way to show thanks to Henrietta and her family. The foundation also hopes to offer assistance to other African Americans in need who are pursuing education in science and medicine."

That's it for now, I will continue to post about this topic as I continue to read the book...

Hasta luego,

Anita