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THE TREATMENT OF BLACKS BY THE MEDICAL COMMUNITY:
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
I will be using the Modern Language Association or MLA format according to what my
teacher required me to use. I believe that this format would be helpful to follow and can help me
include what is necessary while writing these document.
Skloot, Rebecca. "Rebecca Skloot Journalist, Teacher, Author of The Immortal Life of
Henrietta Lacks." Rebecca Skloot The Immortal Life Comments. Web. 27 Apr. 2015.
<http://rebeccaskloot.com/the-immortal-life/excerpt/>.
Rebecca Skloot is the author of the number 1 best seller of the New York Times, which is
the non-fiction book entitled, "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks." This book was written in
the year 2010. The author, Skloot, is a freelance science writer who specializes and focuses here
books and journal in science and medicine. Skloot attended Portland Community College and
becoming a Veterinary Technician. Also, she also graduated BS in Biological Sciences from
Colorado State University. Moreover, when Rebecca Skloot was still 16 years old, she enrolled
in a junior college science class to satisfy a secondary school science necessity. Skloot got
occupied with the story of Lack when her instructor, Donald Defler, gave an address about the
stunning characteristics of human cells. In it, he said that cell propagation was "delightful like
a superbly choreographed move." He clarified that even one misstep in this move could bring
about cells to imitate wildly: cancer. Amid his address, Defler told his class that when Henrietta
Lacks was diagnosed with cervical cancer, researchers had been attempting and neglecting to
make human cells recreate in a research facility for a considerable length of time. For reasons
unknown, Henrietta's cells were distinctive. They survived and recreated uncertainly in a tissue

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society, turning into a cell line researchers named HeLa. HeLa cells have now lived outside
Henrietta Lack's body longer than they lived inside it. Her cells are helping analysts find out
about human cells, to create medicines for growth, and to study endless different infections. In
the end Rebecca discovered a few articles about Henrietta Lacks from the 1970s. From them, she
discovered that the Lacks family was not educated about HeLa until very nearly 25 years after
Henrietta's passing, and they were stunned to discover that the cells were currently being sold for
benefit. As per the article, the family felt "that science and the press had exploited them." In
master's level, Rebecca concentrated on true to life composing stories, and she chose to have a go
at telling Henrietta Lacks' story. She spent 10 years hunting down data about both the cells and
the lady whose body they originated from. All the while, she became friends with Deborah
Lacks, who was persuaded that her mom's soul needed the story told.
Skloot,

Rebecca.

"The

Immortal

Life

of

Henrietta

Lacks

Summary

ENotes.com."Enotes.com. Web. 27 Apr. 2015. <http://www.enotes.com/topics/the-immortal-lifeof-henrietta-lacks>.

The first book written by Rebecca Skloot entitled, "The Immortal Life of Henrietta
Lacks," is about a girl named Henrietta Lacks and her immortal cell line called HeLa. HeLa is a
cell named after Henrietta Lacks, the said cell was taken from her cervical cancer and it was said
to be immortal because it continues to develop and grow starting from 1951. Also, the story
gives me the point of view from a racial perspective on Henrietta's life-permitting me to take a
look at the bioethical and social parts of her life story. The story of Lacks is one the great
examples that would testify the kind of treatment for black people from the medical community.
According to the story, it was found out that in their country, only the Johns Hopkins [hospital]

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was the one and only that offered treatment to dark patients like Henrietta Lack. Moreover,
racism is a significant topic in the everlasting story of Henrietta Lacks. Racism is evident
through the constrained health awareness accessible to minorities. There was the same a story
about Cootie, Henrietta's first cousin, he was diagnosed with polio and he was only treated
because he had to a degree of light skin. At the point when Cootie fell sick, a nearby white
specialist brought him to the closest health care center. The doctor just said that Cootie was his
child, since the doctors would not like to treat dark individuals. If not for that specialist, Cootie
would have died just because prejudice and racist doctors. Rebecca Skloot found out that the
medical records of Henrietta shows of some diagnoses that she just taken for granted. Skloot may
have noticed that Henrietta likely declined for medications because strolling into Hopkins was
similar to entering an outside nation where she didn't talk the dialect.
In addition, the story of Henrietta Lacks would have not been discovered if not because
of Rebecca Skloot. I think that this book was proposed for a group of people, the audience, and
the readers who were really into science as a result of the extensive exploratory piece of this
book. It was to demonstrate to them how they can't exploit these individuals and how it can
influence people groups lives without them knowing these facts.