The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

Rebecca Skloot has written a fascinating account about the gathering and utilization of human cells for medical research. It has achieved widespread acclaim for its appeal in both the scientific and lay communities. But there's much more. This book is also an ode to friendship, even love, as Skloot gathers together a wildly unbalanced family in an attempt to calm their cynical minds. THE IMMORTAL LIFE OF HENRIETTA LACKS has been a runaway best seller since it was first published in 2010. It's amazing that a complicated topic would have such universal appeal. But give the author credit for taking a complex scientific subject, simplifying it, and infusing it with human interest, making the reader feel intelligent while still being entertained. It's a detective story with a technical background featuring real people you care about. One can imagine the emotion of having parts of a dead family member, in this case a mother, divided and spread around the world for purposes not fully understood. What parts are being used? What are they being used for? And what does it mean when you are told your beloved will live forever when you know she's dead? Although you might not accept the answers, being well educated might make them easier to grasp. But being totally ignorant about human cells, their study and usage, and medical procedures and their consequences, having a dead mother involved would surely cause great angst to most of us. Add the constant badgering of a notoriously ill mannered and prying news media and one can appreciate the torment to the remaining members of the Lacks family. We meet Deborah Lacks, Henrietta's daughter. She is troubled and vehemently opposed to further discussions of her mother's death and subsequent cell distribution. The rest of the family point to her as the final hurdle Skloot must overcome to get information about Henrietta's turbulent life. But she's not talking. Skloot's accounts of the gradual steps she must take to gain Deborah's cooperation are touching and brilliantly presented. The remaining family members reluctantly follow along. There is continuing scientific debate about the virulence of Henrietta Lacks's cells, or HeLa, as they are commonly known. They have powerful growth qualities and are eternal when most others don't even survive first cultivation. Her family had many ideas about that, mostly based on supposition or superstition. Some thought it was God's punishment for various transgressions by Henrietta. Others thought it was God's punishment for Adam's eating of Eve's apple or, perhaps, disease-causing spirits that hovered over Henrietta. One thought it possible that something alive had crawled into Henrietta, killed her, and kept on living. One thing was for sure. None of them knew what was happening to Henrietta either before or after her death. This created the anger and distrust that Rebecca Skloot was battling against to get her story together. The living relatives had much to distrust when it came to science, not the least being an inherent fear of any scientific experimentation with black people based on past experiences being widely publicized at the time. And there was the idea that a lot of money was being made with Henrietta's body parts, and the family members, who desperately needed financial assistance, were not getting one dime of it. Skloot tackles all these perplexing situations in an analytical and nonjudgmental manner. She is the embodiment of an investigative journalist; probing, indefatigable, brave. She is also a talented writer, but there is more than that about her. She gets intensely involved with Henrietta Lacks's survivors and her honesty and genuine affinity with their plight gains their reluctant cooperation. It took her ten years to do that. I was amazed at the depth of research in the book, the beauty and simplicity of the writing, and the importance of the subject. I believe this book deserves the highest prize for literature and that Rebecca Skloot's debut effort is nothing short of sheer genius. Schuyler T Wallace Author of TIN LIZARD TALES

In 1951 a woman died in Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore of cervical cancer. The cancer had been "particularly virulent", and though she was treated with the latest protocols for cervical cancer, she never had much of a chance. A surgeon at Hopkins took samples of her tumor and put the cells in a petri dish for researchers trying to cultivate human cells in the laboratory. These cells grew and reproduced as no other before and few since had done and they have been used by researchers ever since. They came along just in time to provide the medium for testing the first polio vaccine and have been "workhorse" cells ever since, used in research on herpes, leukemia, influenza, hemophilia, Parkinson's, lactose intolerance, sexually transmitted diseases , and much more--even the effect on human cells of working in sewers. The woman was Henrietta Lacks. She was black and poor, the descendent of slaves and sharecroppers who grew tobacco in Maryland and Virginia. Her cells, according to conventions of the time, were called HeLa (first two letters of first and last name). The researchers at Hopkins shared the cells with colleagues at other institutions and those researchers shared or sold them further. They survived just fine sent in the mail it was discovered. Soon HeLa cells were used all over the world and far more HeLa cells existed than Henrietta Lacks had ever had. It was years before the discovery that her tumor was HPV, the fast growing cervical cancer which young girls are advised to get a vaccine for now, and that that accounted for their "immortality". Rebecca Skloot heard this story in a college class and found a passion as she attempted to understand how it happened that so much medical research depended on the cells of a single woman but also who this woman was, how she had lived and what descendents she had left. She was not the first researcher interested in HeLa and the woman who was the tissue donor--though of course "donor" is probably not the correct term since Henrietta Lacks was never consulted. And many of those who wrote about HeLa also tried to find Henrietta's family with the result that the Lacks, who grew up on stories of the Tuskegee Institute syphilis research[1] and rumors that Hopkins--founded as a charity hospital-- kidnapped black people at night and subjected them to hideous medical experiments, suspected on the one hand that Henrietta might have been tortured or even killed and on the other resented the fact that others had made money off her cells and they had got nothing. So they either refused to talk to reporters or researchers or they ranted about the commercialization of their relative's cells which had benefitted everyone but them. Rebecca set her sights on Deborah Lacks, Henrietta's daughter, and spent 10 years getting to know her and the family Henrietta had left and attempting to help them get recognition for a relative who had provided so much to medical science. The result is a fascinating book in which Skloot tells the story of the Lacks family as well as the story of the HeLa cells and their role in medical research and the evolving medical ethics story surrounding the use of human tissue in research. The relationship Skloot developed with the Lacks was extraordinary: she overcame endless suspicions of white people, reporters, researchers, profiteers, etc. to become a real friend to Deborah and her family. She tells their story in their own voices--and clearly it was not easy to both explain their ideas and feelings and clearly communicate their values to the audience, nor was it easy to gain their trust and cooperation. I can't imagine many writers going to the lengths Skloot went to get a story that nevertheless honors and doesn't exploit those whose story it is. Winning over the Lacks klan required more than most writers would be willing to give of themselves. In addition Skloot provides lively and engaging narrative, full of interesting personalities, that results from her extensive research on the use of human cells in medical research and the ethical issues surrounding that use. I couldn't put the book down--and before reading this I'd never have said I was very interested in either cell research or medical ethics. Most readers will probably be surprised to learn that while medical ethics, especially protecting the privacy of patents has come a long way since Henrietta Lacks' cells first appeared on the scene, it is still not illegal for human tissue to be used without the informed consent of the patient. It's an ongoing debate on which Skloot presents a variety of positions so that the readers understand the complexity of the issues involved. For a nonfiction book on a significant current topic, this one can't be beat. It's a page turner, full of human interest but never at the expense of the facts or the issues. [1] The Tuskegee Syphilis Study is one of the most horrendous examples of research carried out in disregard of basic ethical principles of conduct. The publicity surrounding the study was one of the major influences leading to the codification of protection for human subjects. [From the Tuskegee Institute website, [...]

Muy buen producto, llego en buen estado y buenas condiciones

Livro fantástico, vale muito a pena.

Ce livre a tout pour lui; un histoire passionnant, incroyable et véridique, très bien écrit, il se lit comme un polar, mais en même temps c'est une biographie, et une histoire de la science. A lire pour le côté humain, le côté scientifique, et pour le suspense! A mettre entre toutes les mains.

Ich habe diese Buch, einmal angefangen, kaum noch aus der Hand gelegt. Aufmerksam gemacht hat mich eine Professorin bei einer Übung im Rahmen meines Studiums, die sich ebenfalls um Krebs und andere Zellabnormalitäten drehte. Heute habe ich das Buch, nicht zum wahrscheinlich letzten Mal, durchgelesen. Rebecca Skloot hat meiner Meinung nach etwas wirklich Großartiges mit diesem Buch geschaffen und ich hoffe, dass möglichst viele Menschen auf der weiten Welt es noch in ihren Händen halten werden. Sie schafft es, die Wissenschaft so verständlich wie möglich auf Papier zu bannen und dabei nie die Geschichte dahinter aus den Augen zu verlieren. Manche meinen nun, dies sei ein weiterer Versuch aus der Hinterlassenschaft von Henrietta Lacks und ihrer Familie Geld zu schlagen, doch ich möchte glauben, dass es wirklich darum ging, einer Frau die Anerkennung zuteil werden zu lassen, die ihr meiner Meinung nach zusteht. Wenn es nach mir ginge, würde ich dieses Buch für Studierende der Medizin und anderer Richtungen wie zum Beispiel Molekularbiologie als Pflichtlektüre einführen. Es ist wichtig, besonders hier nicht zu vergessen, dass hinter allen Proben, Ergebnissen, etc. und den damit verbundenen Errungenschaften auch immer ein Mensch steht. Und dass die Wissenschaft auch nach dem zweiten Weltkrieg nicht immer im besten Interesse jener handelte, von denen diese Proben stammten oder an denen die neuen Wirkstoffe getestet wurden. Die Geschichte Henriettas und ihrer Familie, besonders ihrer Tochter Deborah, gehört hier genauso erzählt, wie die Geschichte und Entwicklung der Wissenschaft, die die damals von Henrietta entnommenen Zellen ausgelöst haben. Ich habe dieses Buch sehr genossen und halt es für eines der wertvollsten, die ich bis jetzt gelesen habe. Empfehlen kann ich dieses Buch für jeden, der einen Blick hinter die Kulissen der heutigen Medizin und besonders auch der Krebs- und Genforschung werfen will. Man begibt sich auf eine spannende Reise zu den Ursprüngen von Methoden, die heute Routine sind, damals aber noch in Kinderschuhen steckten oder gar erst durch die Zellen von Henrietta möglich gemacht wurden und die heute jeden Tag die Leben vieler Patienten verändern.

One of the best written non fiction books you can read, the quality of the research and the author’s representation of the people and the emotions behind HeLa are exceptional.