Essay on Henrietta Lacks

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HENRIETTA LACKS
One woman's cells single-handedly helped improve the day to day life of many humans all around the world today. That woman's name is Henrietta Lacks. Henrietta Lack’s cells have been famous over the past few decades. The ethical controversy concerning the cells has made Henrietta Lacks very famous. Although Henrietta succumbed to death, Hela cells have been useful in medical research. HeLa cells were the first human cells to grow and divide infinitely in the laboratory. This made scientists label them as immortal cells. The great medical strides made by Henrietta’s cells are stated in many articles such as “5 important ways Henrietta Lacks changed medical science today” written by Leah Samuel published on the website, Stat, “Five Reasons Henrietta Lacks is the Most Important Woman in History” written by Paul D. Andrews and his article is published in Popular Science. The next article is written by Lindsey Flanick and published at Yale-New HavenTeachers Institute and is titled “Cell Biology: From HeLa Cells to the Polio Vaccine”. Another article is written by Carl Zimmer, published in The New York Times and is titled “A Family Consents to a Medical Gift, 62 Years Later”. The last article is titled “Henrietta Lacks' Cells Are Still Helping Protect Women From Cervical Cancer” written by Rosalie Chan and is published in HuffPost. The medical strides made by Henrietta Lacks’s cells outweigh the ethical issues because her cells helped produce the vaccine for polio, the vaccine for HPV in females, mapping the human genome, and how cells maintain their early stages.
Henrietta Lacks was a woman of African American descent. She felt something was wrong as if she “... got a knot on her womb” and traveled to Johns Hopkins hospital and there she was diagnosed with cervical cancer. Before she was diagnosed with cancer, Henrietta Lacks suffered from abdominal pains and unusual bleeding. To some extent, she thought it was an ectopic pregnancy. Since Henrietta Lacks was an African American woman, the only hospital that she could be able to access was John Hopkins Hospital which was very far away. The authors suggest that the doctor had never seen anything like that before. Doctor Howard Jones decided to remove some cells for biopsy. After the study, the remnants of the tissues were labeled HeLa. This was the name that was assigned to these cells. The results of the samples indicated that the tumor was cancerous and this happened with the knowledge of Henrietta and her family.
This is where all the ethical issues begin to arise. Henrietta Lacks "... never consented to her cells’ being studied” (Zimmer) as it was stated by Carl Zimmer in his article titled “A Family Consents to a Medical Gift, 62 Years Later” that is published in The New York Times. Lindsey Flanich writes in her article titled “Cell Biology: From HeLa Cells to the Polio Vaccine” published in Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute’s website, “When Gey was given a sample of Lacks' cells, he was amazed to find that they could be kept alive and grown, unlike any human cell that he or other scientists had previously tried to culture” (Flanick). George Grey discovered that the cells had a unique quality. The cells were immortal such that they proliferated very fast and open-endedly outside the body. These cells were extraordinary. The uniqueness of the HeLa cells made them be used in the research of different diseases and treatments. These cells could be tested on live human cells without affecting an individual. However, Henrietta Lacks died in 1951 without giving any consent except for the exam that was taken by Dr. Jones. Dr. George Gey shared Henrietta’s cells that were given the name HeLa, with other scientists without Henrietta Lacks’s consent.
Henrietta Lacks’s cells helped make not one but two vaccines. After the death of Henrietta in 1951, various hospitals began tests involving the poliovirus on the HeLa cells. Doctors used small samples of the HeLa cells to produce identical cells. This allowed them to perform more tests. Additionally, this reduced the risk of depleting the cells that were required to perform other tests. These tests and research lead to the discovery of the polio vaccine. This was a discovery that saved a lot of lives and provided hope for future generations because they could be able to prevent the outbreak of polio. Leah Samuel wrote an article titled “5 important ways Henrietta Lacks changed medical science today” which mentioned how Henrietta’s cells aided the research for the polio vaccine. She stated that HeLa cells allowed scientists to make the vaccine sooner (Samuel). If it was not for Henrietta’s cells many more people would have been negatively affected. It would have taken the scientists, who made the vaccine, much longer to invent which in turn would have left more people affected with the virus. Her contribution allowed a countless number of people to continue having the same quality of life they had, leaving them unaffected from the virus. HeLa cells were used to test the possible vaccines that scientists were concocting. Samuel states the following in her article, " the cells more susceptible to the virus than the cells scientists previously used, the fast-growing cells were nearly impossible to kill" (Samuel). Before utilizing Henrietta's cells, scientists were using cells from monkeys. That was affecting their research in two ways. One of the ways being that the cells were not identical to human cells which would not react in humans the same ways. Henrietta's cells were affected by the virus more easily which made it easier for the scientists to get a better reading of the reaction from the cells once a potential vaccine was introduced to the infected HeLa cells. The other being that collecting cells from monkeys was costing the researchers a lot of money. That had the possibility of slowing down the research due to possibly running out of funding. Although Henrietta did not consent to her cells being used for research, her cells helped save millions of people from being affected by the poliovirus.
Henrietta Lacks’s cells helped the overall health of females today by playing an incalculable role in creating the vaccine for HPV. When the sample of Henrietta’s cervix was taken, she had already been diagnosed with stage one cervical cancer. The doctor performing the procedure took two samples. Both of the samples came from her cervix, one was of healthy cervical tissue and the other was of her cancerous cervical tissue. Taking samples was procedural but handing off part of Henrietta Lacks’s sample to another scientist was not routine. No medical personnel had received consent from any member of the Lacks family. Although that was a very unethical act HeLa cells allowed scientists to make many discoveries and save many lives. Samuel states the following in her article, “German virologist Harald Zur Hausen found that HeLa cells contained multiple copies of human papillomavirus 18 (HPV-18), a strain of HPV later found to cause the type of cervical cancer that killed Lacks" (Samuel). Due to German virologist, Harald Zur Hausen’s great discovery scientists were able to uncover the cure for HPV. How the German virologist Harald Zur Hausen obtained Henrietta Lacks’s cells was unethical due to Henrietta as well as her family having no knowledge that Henrietta’s cells were being bought and sold for money by other scientists. This, without a doubt, is very unethical but the lives HeLa cells have saved greatly outweigh how unethical this is. Rosalie Chan quotes Dr. Jasmine Tiro in her article titled “Henrietta Lacks’ Cells Are Still Helping Protect Women From Cervical Cancer” published in HuffPost stating the following, “It’s one of the first times we have a cure for cancer that’s available” (Chan). Due to Henrietta’s cells the cure for one type of cancer, that was taking many people's lives, has a cure. Chan also states in her article that the vaccine for HPV in which Henrietta Lacks’ cells, named HeLa cells, greatly contributed to have “...helped reduce HPV cases in teenage girls by almost two-thirds" (Chan). Even with a vaccine available for HPV, many people are still affected. Chan also states in her article the following, "Each year, some 12,000 women in the U.S. are diagnosed with cervical cancer, and 4,000 women die from it” (Chan). As a result of distributing, selling and buying, Henrietta Lacks’s cells were discovered to be infected with HPV. After a few years of this discovery, scientists invented the vaccine for HPV. For this reason, roughly 8,000 women in the United States do not die of HPV after being diagnosed with this particular virus. Henrietta Lacks’s cells have also helped prevent many women from even being infected by this virus due to her cells aiding in the devel...