book: The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Rebecca Skloot
there are some books I consider “Must Reads” , even if they’re Tough Reads. This is one of them – especially if you’re any way involved in medical/biological/biochem fields , this book is Required reading, in a way. it’s tough, I did cry reading chapter 33. It’s worth it.
For those who don’t know her story: Henrietta Lacks was a poor black woman working as a tobacco farmer in the early 1900s. A lot of her life’s story was lost or buried or hidden (from her, and her family), & Skloot writes this book in collaboration with, and discussion with, Henrietta’s living descendants. Henrietta is perhaps the most important person in the modern cell-biology/medical field, yet nobody knew her name, until recently. She died from aggressive cervical cancer: a cancer which was biopsied, and found to be “immortal” (infinitely-reproducing themselves) in cell culture. These immortal cancer cells have served as test subjects for countless advances, including vaccines and treatments for polio, AIDS, and cancer. For the longest time, people knew only of her cells (HeLa cells) and the multimillion-dollar industry of growing and selling them, and never of Henrietta herself. Moreover, financial inequalities and racism led to her descendants (until recently) not staying in school very long, so that they did not know of the HeLa cells until long after their commercialization, and they could not understand the science around it. Skloot spends time with Deborah (Dale) Lacks to try and find the lost parts of the Lacks family history, to make sense of the HeLa cells, and to seek closure.
It’s a harrowing & necessary book, as described on the cover. Countless times the Lacks family is taken advantage of, the legacy pre-Nuremberg-Code , racially-segregated medical care in the U.S.A a specter throughout. The injustices compound, HeLa having saved countless lives and made the careers of many scientists, but time and again the living Lacks family cannot afford education nor healthcare.
The book is a Must Read for me because much of it is told by the Lackses and the emphasis is on the people involved, while the scientific contributions are still discussed. The book gives space for the living Lackses to express their own feelings towards the HeLa cells, to express how they have made peace with things, on what they would like as reparations, on how they feel exploited on many fronts (by the medical industry, also by people trying to force them to become leaders of social movements around tissue/cell ownership).
there are a bunch of necessary warnings: racism, medical malpractice, human experimentation, ableism, asylum / psych ward, psychiatric abuse, sexual assault, COCSA, incest, spousal & child abuse . it’s perhaps not a book tackled as a lightweight read. But I would encourage reading it , & sitting with everything it discusses.
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