The Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks PDF Free Download

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The Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks Book By Rebecca Skloot PDF Free Download, Overview, Reviews, Summary, Quotes, Get Book, Videos, Q&a, More By Author.

The Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks PDF

The History Of Modern Medicine, Bioethics, And, Yes, Racial Relations Are Wonderfully And Movingly Reframed In This #1 New York Times Bestseller. From Entertainment Weekly One Of The “Most Influential” (Cnn), “Defining,” And “Best” (The Philadelphia Inquirer) Books Of The Decade.

One Of Essence’s 50 Most Influential Black Books Of The Past 50 Years. Winner Of The Chicago Tribune Heartland Prize For Nonfiction. Named One Of The New York Times Book Review’s Best Books Of The Year.

Weekly Entertainment • Publishers Weekly • Library Journal • Kirkus Reviews • Booklist • Npr • Financial Times • New York • Independent (Uk) • Times (Uk) • O: The Oprah Magazine Henrietta Lacks Was Her Name, But Scientists Refer To Her As Hela.

The First “Immortal” Human Cells Developed In Culture, Which Are Still Alive Today Despite Her Having Been Dead For More Than 60 Years, Originated From A Poor Southern Tobacco Farmer Who Farmed The Same Land As Her Slave Ancestors.

Her Cells Were Removed From Her Without Her Consent. Hela Cells Were Essential For Creating The Polio Vaccine, Helped Scientists Learn More About Cancer, Viruses, And The Consequences Of The Atom Bomb, And Aided With Significant Developments Like In Vitro Fertilisation, Cloning, And Gene Mapping. They Have Also Been Purchased And Sold In The Billions.

Yet, Henrietta Lacks, Who Is Buried In An Unmarked Tomb, Is Still Essentially Unknown. It Took Henrietta’s Family More Than Twenty Years After Her Passing For Them To Hear Of Her “Immortality,” At Which Point Doctors Working On Hela Started Employing Her Husband And Kids In Studies Without Their Knowledge Or Permission.

Her Family Never Received Any Of The Money Made From The Sale Of Human Biological Resources, Despite The Fact That The Cells Helped To Create A Multimillion Dollar Business.

The Narrative Of The Lacks Family, Both In The Past And Now, Is Intricately Linked To The Controversial Beginnings Of Bioethics And The Legal Disputes Over Whether We Have Control Over What We Are Formed Of, As Rebecca Skloot So Masterfully Demonstrates.

Rebecca Got Deeply Involved In The Life Of The Lacks Family, Notably Deborah, Henrietta’s Daughter, Throughout The Course Of The Ten Years It Took To Unearth This Tale. Deborah Couldn’t Stop Wondering Whether Her Mother Had Been Cloned By Scientists.

Have They Murdered Her In Order To Get Her Cells? And Why Couldn’t Her Kids Afford Health Insurance If Her Mother Was So Vital To Medicine? The Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks Is A Captivating Book That Captures The Drama And Beauty Of Scientific Discovery As Well As Its Effects On People. It Is Intimate In Emotion, Astounding In Breadth, And Difficult To Put Down.

Synopsis Of The Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks

In 1951, An African American Lady Named Henrietta Lacks Noticed What She Termed A “Knot” On Her Cervix That Turned Out To Be A Particularly Deadly Type Of Cervical Cancer. George Gey, The Director Of Tissue Culture, Had Been Tasked With Creating A Culture Of Both Malignant And Healthy Surgical Cell Tissue By The Chief Of Gynaecology At Johns Hopkins Hospital, Who Was Researching Cervical Cancer At The Time. Gey Requested Tissue Samples From Henrietta Lacks And All Other Patients With Cervical Cancer As A Consequence. At The Time, No Human Cell Had Ever Survived For An Extended Period Of Time In A Lab, But Gey’s Hela Cancer Cells From Henrietta Lacks Did. Henrietta Was Receiving Treatment For Cervical Cancer At The Same Time, But She Passed Away From The Illness, Leaving Her Husband And Five Children Behind. The Lacks Family Was Unaware That Some Of Her Cells Were Still Alive After Being Removed By Specialists. Day Hesitated When The Physicians At Hopkins Asked For An Autopsy On Henrietta, But He Eventually Agreed At The Urging Of His Cousin When The Doctor Said That The Data From The Autopsy Could One Day Assist His Kids. The Family Didn’t Realise That A Portion Of Henrietta Was Still Alive Until 1973, When A Family Acquaintance Who Was A Researcher Stated That He Performed Work On Hela Cells.

Gey’s Cultivation Of Hela Cells Not Only Survived, But It Also Enabled Researchers To Study Illness And Genetics In A Way Never Before Possible And Create Novel Drugs And Vaccines. Gey Provided Samples Of Hela Cells At No Cost To Any Researcher Who Asked For Them. For-profit Cell Culture Facilities Started To Appear Over Time, Generating Hela Cells And Other Cell Lines In Large Quantities To More Effectively Supply Research Centres. Yet, Hela Cells Have The Capacity To Infect Other Cell Cultures Due To Their Tenacity And Rapid Growth. Geneticists Learned In 1973 That They Could More Quickly Determine Whether Cultures Had Been Infected If They Could Isolate Certain Genetic Markers From Hela Cells. A Scientist At Hopkins Requested Blood Samples From Henrietta’s Children In Order To Achieve This. Deborah, Henrietta’s Daughter, Thought She Was Receiving A Cancer Screening Since The Physicians Failed To Make Sure The Lacks Children Understood Why They Needed To Have Blood Collected.

Meanwhile, The Media Circulated The Tale Of The “Immortal” Cell Culture And The Enigmatic Lady Behind The Cells Since Hela Cells And Cell Culturing Promised So Many Medical Advancements. Henrietta’s True Name Was Published In A Tiny Specialised Publication By A Colleague Of Gey, But Most Major News Organisations Misidentified Her As Helen Lane. Henrietta Lacks’ Real Identity Was Unknown Until 1975, When Rolling Stone Reporter Michael Rogers Approached The Lacks Family For A Piece On Hela Cells. The Lacks Family Was Shocked To Find That Henrietta’s Cells Were Being Used For Commercial Purposes. They Were Brought Back To The Horrible Past Of White American Physicians Using Black Individuals In Immoral Studies. The Family Was Still Contacted By Journalists, Including A Bbc Documentary Crew In 1996. Deborah Had Hoped That The Film Would Tell Henrietta’s Tale And Teach Her More About Her Mother. Sadly, Sir Lord Cofield, A Con Artist, Was Drawn To The Family By The Documentary. Cofield Pretended To Be A Lawyer And Said He Could Assist The Family In Suing Hopkins Hospital. He Threatened Legal Action Against The Family Once They Uncovered His Deception, Which Terrified Them. Deborah Had A Stroke Due To The Strain Of The Situation.

The Book’s Author, Rebecca Skloot, Made Contact With The Lacks Family In 1999 When She Started Her Investigation. The Family First Didn’t Want To Meet With Her Due To The History Of White Journalists Approaching Them For Stories Without Providing Transparency Or Fair Remuneration, In Addition To The Quite Recent Incident With Cofield. Skloot Nonetheless Persisted In Attempting To Get In Touch And Talked With A Number Of Lacks Family Relatives. Skloot Put Messages On Deborah’s Phone Revealing What She Uncovered About Henrietta’s Youth Since She Knew Deborah Wanted To Know More About Who Her Mother Was As A Person. Sonny And Deborah Lacks Finally Consented To Talk With Her. Skloot Made A Commitment To Deborah To Share All Of Her Findings And Aid In Her Quest To Comprehend What Had Happened To Her Mother. In Addition, She Was Interested In Learning What Happened To Elsie, Her Sister, Who Had Been Committed To A Mental Hospital Before Deborah Was Born. Skloot Agreed, And Deborah Often Went With Skloot On Her Fieldwork Excursions.

The Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks Reviews

The Oddities And Monsters Of Their Day, The Anomalies, Sometimes Skeletonized And Intact, Other Times Sliced Into Pieces And Labelled, May Be Seen In Old-fashioned Museums, Hidden Behind Glass Cases. We Bow To Them For Their Contribution To Knowledge When We Gaze At Them, Yet It Is Difficult To Discern Any Trace Of Humanity In Them. The Empathy Thread Has Become Frayed And Broken. They Have Evolved Into Stone-like Things That Resemble Posthuman Animals.

Henrietta Lacks Is A Unique Kind Of Medical Specimen. There Has Never Been A Dead Woman Who Has Done More For The Living, And Yet We Can Easily See Her From Her Picture—a Vibrant Lady Who Was Just 31 Years Old When She Passed Away In A “Coloured Ward” At Johns Hopkins Hospital In Baltimore—just By Looking At Her Picture. Henrietta Was A Beloved Family Member Who Was Vivacious And Kind-hearted. She Passed Away In Excruciating Agony, And An Examination Revealed That She Had Tumours Throughout Her Body. In The Very End, She Had Only Received Palliative Care, But Nobody Had Ever Told This To Her Family, Who Were Still Holding Out Hope That She May Be Healed. The Youngest Of Her Five Children—a Baby—and Her Husband Are All That Remain. She Did, However, Also Leave Behind A Fragment Of Tissue, A Portion That Had Been Removed From The Cervical Carcinoma That Was Her Main Tumour. Her Cells From This Sample Were Grown.

These Cells Were Resilient And Grew At An Astounding Pace, In Contrast To The Frail Human Cell Lines That Researchers Had Previously Found Frustratingly Difficult To Maintain. The Cell Line, Which Is Often Referred To As Hela In Laboratories, Developed Into An Unrivalled Research Tool In The Years After Henrietta Lacks’ Death. Cells Were Sent To Labs All Around The Globe, Where They Were Purchased And Sold By Research Teams. They Could Be Frozen, And Their Growth Could Be Stopped And Begun Again. They Eliminated The Need For Many Tests On Live Animals. More Than Ever Before Grown In Henrietta’s Living Body, And There Are Trillions Of Them Still Alive. They Have Been Used In Studies On The Polio Vaccination, The Impacts Of Nuclear War, And The Study Of Aids. They Have Also Been Sent Into Space. But, The Often Misidentified Lady Who Produced Them Remained Largely Unknown, And Her Family Received Little Benefit From The Unintentional Gift Of Her Cash-generating Tissues.

Henrietta Lacks: Who Was She? In 1920, She Was Born In Virginia. Henrietta Went To Live With Her Grandpa When Her Mother Passed Away While Giving Birth To The Last Of Her Family’s 10 Children. The Family Took Care Of The Tobacco Fields In The Same Manner As Their Slave Forebears While Living In A Log Cabin That Was Formerly A Slave Quarters. At Age 14, Henrietta Wed Her Cousin And Gave Birth To Her First Kid. She And Her Husband Relocated To Baltimore In The Hopes Of Experiencing Better Riches, But While Seeming To Be A Proud And Courageous Lady, Fate Handed Her A Horrible Hand. When Her Cancer Was Identified, She Already Had Syphilis. Her Institutionalised Deaf Daughter, Elsie, Is A Tragic Aspect Of This Story. The Circumstances Surrounding Elsie’s Brief Existence Are Revealed. The Other Children Of Henrietta Were Raised In Harsh, Cruel Conditions, Learning Very Little About Their Mother As A Person And Her Significance In Medical History. When They Learned That Her Cells Were Still Living More Than 20 Years After She Had Away, They Started To Feel Not Just That They Were Due Money, But Also A Number Of Torturous Misgivings. The Author’s Cousin Stated To Him: “Nobody In This Area Has Ever Comprehended How She Is Dead And That Creature Is Still Alive. The Enigma Resides There.” Henrietta’s Youngest Child, Joe, Was Born While She Was Already Unwell; He Served A Lengthy Jail Term For Murder, And The Family Blamed His Lifelong Delinquencies On The Contaminated Environment Of His Mother’s Pregnancy. Deborah, Henrietta’s Daughter, Thought That Her Mother Had Been Cloned And Was Now Experiencing The Effects Of Every Illness That Her Mother’s Cells Had Contributed To Curing.

It Is Hardly Strange That They Had Such Apprehensions. Years Of Black Oral History Had “Night Physicians” Kidnapping Kids For Horrific Experiments, And The Folklore Wasn’t Wholly Unreasonable. At Public Hospitals, Experiments On Black Patients Were Accepted As Payment For Free Care—experiments That Were Sometimes Risky And Immoral. Black Men Were Permitted To Die Of Syphilis As Part Of The Deplorable Tuskegee Experiment, Which Lasted For Forty Years And Enabled The Illness To Spread. In This Novel, The Unregulated, Inhuman Face Of Science Coexists With The Triumphant Face Of Discovery And Advancement Of Humanity. And If The Ironies Are Obvious, They Are No Less Sour: Henrietta’s Descendants Now Cannot Afford Health Insurance. Henrietta Was Buried In An Unmarked Grave In A Cemetery Among Her Black Ancestors And White Relatives Who Refused To Recognise Her When The Author Asked About Them.

Henrietta Is Brought Back To Life By Rebecca Skloot, Who Examines Her As Both The Founder Of Her Cell Line And A Historical Figure. Her Fascinating Book Covers Topics Such As Colour, Ethnicity, Class, Superstition, Enlightenment, And The Excruciating, Alluring Romance Of Being An American In Addition To Medicine And Science. Her Diligent Research Into Family History And Her Clear And Engaging Summary Of The Science Are Qualities That, On The Whole, Make Up For Her Folksy, Invasive, And Condescending Tone. In Order To Humanise The Hard Statistics, Skloot, An Instructor Of “Creative Non-fiction,” Zigzags The Chronology And Adds Scenic Details. But Is The Work Necessary? Do We Really Need To Have That Knowledge Stored In Our Minds If The Lab Worker Was Having A Tuna Salad Sandwich When Henrietta’s Cells Were Initially Brought In? It Would Have Been Preferable To Believe The Account And Present It As Simply As Possible. The Nine Pages Of Acknowledgments That Follow Skloot’s Last Discussion Of The Morality Of Using Human Tissue Are More Than Typically Conceited And Self-centered, And The Author’s Effort To Insert Herself Into The Narrative Diverts The Reader From The Extensive Factual Background. The Fact That The Author Wants To Be Hailed As A Hero For Publishing The Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks Is The One Thing That Somewhat Detracts From The Success Of This Important And Intriguing Book.

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