![]() ![]() Johns Hopkins never patented HeLa cells, nor did it sell them commercially or benefit in a direct financial way. Lacks’s cells had arranged many years earlier to obtain such cells from any patient diagnosed with cervical cancer as a way to learn more about a serious disease that took the lives of so many. ![]() Sixty years ago, there was no established practice of seeking permission to take tissue for scientific research purposes. Lacks’ tissue, the practice of obtaining informed consent from cell or tissue donors was essentially unknown among academic medical centers. It’s important to note that at the time the cells were taken from Mrs. "Johns Hopkins Medicine sincerely acknowledges the contribution to advances in biomedical research made possible by Henrietta Lacks and HeLa cells. In February 2010, Johns Hopkins released the following statement concerning the cervical samples that were taken from Lacks without her consent: Researchers have used the cells to study disease and to test human sensitivity to new products and substances. Since that time, over ten thousand patents involving HeLa cells have been registered. As demand grew, scientists cloned the cells in 1955. Jonas Salk used the HeLa strain to develop the polio vaccine, sparking mass interest in the cells. The HeLa strain revolutionized medical research. He dubbed the resulting sample HeLa, derived from the name Henrietta Lacks. Gey isolated and multiplied a specific cell, creating a cell line. Unlike most cells, which survived only a few days, Lacks's cells were far more durable. Gey noticed an unusual quality in the cells. The cells from Lacks's tumor made their way to the laboratory of researcher Dr. She died at Johns Hopkins on October 4, 1951, at the age of 31. Physician Howard Jones quickly diagnosed her with cervical cancer.ĭuring her subsequent radiation treatments, doctors removed two cervical samples from Lacks without her knowledge. On January 29, 1951, Lacks went to Johns Hopkins Hospital to diagnose abnormal pain and bleeding in her abdomen. They placed their daughter Elsie, who was developmentally disabled, in the Hospital for the Negro Insane. There, they had three more children: David Jr., Deborah and Joseph. Henrietta and David moved to Maryland at the urging of another cousin, Fred Garret. The couple had a daughter, Elsie, in 1939, and married in 1941. In 1935, the cousins had a son they called Lawrence. Henrietta Lacks shared a room with her first cousin, David "Day" Lacks. After the death of her mother in 1924, Henrietta was sent to live with her grandfather in a log cabin that had been the slave quarters of a white ancestor's plantation. At some point, she changed her name to Henrietta. Lacks was born Loretta Pleasant on August 1, 1920, in Roanoke, Virginia. Lacks' case has sparked legal and ethical debates over the rights of an individual to his or her genetic material and tissue. Cells taken from her body without her knowledge were used to form the HeLa cell line, which has been used extensively in medical research since that time. Withinthe confines of a segregated health-care system, these factors became poor health outcomes that shaped black America as if they were its genetic material.Henrietta Lacks was born in 1920 in Virginia and died of cervical cancer in 1951. The descendants of enslaved people lived much more dangerous and unhealthy lives than white counterparts, in disease-ridden and degraded environments. While there were some deaths that were directly attributable to being denied emergency service, most of the damage was done in establishing the same cumulative health disparities that plague black people today as a societal fate. ![]() The deficit of trained black medical professionals (itself caused by a number of factors including education segregation) meant that no matter where black people received health-care services, they would find their care to be subpar compared to that of whites. Many hospitals, clinics, and doctor’s offices were totally segregated by race, and many more maintained separate wings or staff that could never intermingle under threat of law. Like other forms of segregation, health-care segregation was originally a function of explicitly racist black codes and Jim Crow laws.
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