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bioethics--and, indeed, race relations--is refracted beautifully, and
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Her name was Henrietta Lacks, but scientists know her as HeLa. She was a
poor Southern tobacco farmer who worked the same land as her slave
ancestors, yet her cells--taken without her knowledge--became one of the
most important tools in medicine: The first "immortal" human cells grown
in culture, which are still alive today, though she has been dead for
more than sixty years. HeLa cells were vital for developing the polio
vaccine; uncovered secrets of cancer, viruses, and the atom bomb's
effects; helped lead to important advances like in vitro fertilization,
cloning, and gene mapping; and have been bought and sold by the
billions.
Yet Henrietta Lacks remains virtually unknown, buried in an unmarked
grave.
Henrietta's family did not learn of her "immortality" until more than
twenty years after her death, when scientists investigating HeLa began
using her husband and children in research without informed consent. And
though the cells had launched a multimillion-dollar industry that sells
human biological materials, her family never saw any of the profits. As
Rebecca Skloot so brilliantly shows, the story of the Lacks family--past
and present--is inextricably connected to the dark history of
experimentation on African Americans, the birth of bioethics, and the
legal battles over whether we control the stuff we are made of.
Over the decade it took to uncover this story, Rebecca became enmeshed
in the lives of the Lacks family--especially Henrietta's daughter
Deborah. Deborah was consumed with questions: Had scientists cloned her
mother? Had they killed her to harvest her cells? And if her mother was
so important to medicine, why couldn't her children afford health
insurance?
Intimate in feeling, astonishing in scope, and impossible to put down,
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks captures the beauty and drama of
scientific discovery, as well as its human consequences.
