![]() ![]() How “disinterested” a writer can an author be when they are so intimately involved in their investigation that they become a part of the story. ![]() The author’s involvement in the story and with the central players may become a topic for book groups to discuss. Author Skloot becomes a major player in the book when she engages Henrietta’s daughter, Deborah, as friend, mentor and ally. Skloot writes clearly enough so that even those who failed high school biology will get the gist of the medical experience of the Lacks family. But at others, it serves as an introduction to medical/scientific ethics and experimentation. The book is exceptionally well written, reading at times like a medical thriller. Without compensating, or even acknowledging, the person from whom the cells were obtained, her cells were first given away, then sold, in order to advance medical knowledge. Lacks and her family were lied to, misled, ill informed, taken advantage of and used by the medical community after her cancerous cells were found to be able to multiply indefinitely. Lacks again, so I will just say that this non-fiction work details how Mrs. You can also learn more about the legacy of Henrietta Lacks at /HenriettaLacks.It seems silly to go over the “plot” of this biography of Mrs. To learn more, visit /henriettalacks/upholding-the-highest-bioethical-standards.html. The medical research community has also made significant strides in improving research practices, in part thanks to the lessons learned from Henrietta Lacks’ story. Johns Hopkins, and researchers and bioethicists worldwide, have learned a great deal from the examination of important bioethical issues, and Johns Hopkins is committed to ensuring the appropriate protection and care of medical information related to Lacks and her family. Institutional review boards review any and every application of research involving humans.” At the time Henrietta Lacks was a patient, there was no framework for informed consent. One employee asked, “Does Johns Hopkins have a board of ethics and are the ethics of a patient considered more now?” to which Dr. Questions and comments shared by audience members addressed some tough topics including ethics, patient consent and current research practices. In one particularly compelling line, Winfrey’s character, visiting a lab at Johns Hopkins, cups her hands around a frozen vial that contains her mother’s cells and whispers, “You’re famous, just nobody knows it,” referencing the impact the HeLa cells have made on scientific discoveries.Īfter each of the screenings held on the East Baltimore campus, Landon King, executive vice dean for the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, and James Page, vice president and chief diversity officer for Johns Hopkins Medicine, facilitated a question and answer discussion. In the movie, based on a 2010 best-selling book of the same name by Rebecca Skloot, Lacks’ daughter, Deborah (played by Oprah Winfrey) is on a quest to learn more about her mother, who died at age 31 when Deborah was 2. The cells-named HeLa after the first two letters in her first and last name-have been used to support advances in many fields of medical research, including development of the polio vaccine. Although Lacks, a mother of five, died, her cells were used to begin the first human cell line able to reproduce indefinitely. Extra samples of her cells were collected during a biopsy, a common practice at Johns Hopkins at that time regardless of a patient’s race or socioeconomic status. In 1951, Henrietta Lacks sought treatment at The Johns Hopkins Hospital for cervical cancer. The four screenings on the East Baltimore campus and the fifth screening at Homewood were nearly filled to capacity as faculty, staff and students came to see Lacks’ story, her impact on medical science and important bioethical issues come to life on the big screen. “I am grateful for the many contributions that Henrietta Lacks made to science and appreciate the fact that Johns Hopkins aims to raise awareness of these events.” “The movie is a ‘must-see’ story, leaving me with a core of emotion and appreciation of her life,” says Brownlee, assistant administrator for ambulatory and access operations. Darren Brownlee was one of over 2,000 Johns Hopkins faculty, staff and students who attended one of the pre-screenings of the highly anticipated HBO film, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, in Turner Auditorium and on the Homewood campus. ![]()
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