The Fame She So Richly Deserves/It's Alive pg.170-184

These two chapters would occur during the 70's particularly following the death of George Gey. George Gey died on November 8, 1970 to pancreatic cancer. Since there was rare to no pancreatic cancer research, Gey wanted to be one of the first to offer his tumor cells to provide for it's research. He had hopes that his cells would be immortal like Henrietta's. This wasn't the case, Gey's tumor cells died shortly after.

After Gey's death, President Richard Nixon designated 1.5 Billion dollars into cancer research, stating that cancer would be cured within the next 5 years. This put so much pressure on the scientists and doctors rushing to find a cure.

There was also controversy to where the HeLa cells came from. Henrietta cells were so famous because she'd been dead for so long but it invade other cell cultures and kept multiplying. It was all over the tabloids at the time. There were rumors saying her name was Helen Larsen, Helen Lane,Helga Larsen, Heather Langtree, and actress Hedy Lamarr.

J Douglass would publish a letter to the journal Nature saying and I quote, "all those women should "withdraw as gracefully as they can," because he'd received a letter from Howard W. Jones that left "no doubt that HeLa cells were named after Henrietta Lacks."(Skloot 176)

This takes us to Part Three of the book "Immortality". Bobbette Lacks was in Baltimore for the week staying at her friend Gardenia's house. Bobbette was talking to Gardenia's brother-in-law, who ironically worked at the Baltimore City Hospital, for the National Cancer Institute.

This was the first introduction to the Lacks family that Henrietta's cells were still alive and were being used in labs for cancer research without the Lacks' family consent. Gardenia's brother-in-law said "I've been working with these cells in my lab for years, and I just read this article that said they came from a woman named Henrietta Lacks". (Skloot 180)

Soon after, the Lacks family were a target for scientists and doctors. They wanted to know whether or not any other relative of Henrietta had immortal cells or something of that significance. This led Dr.Hsu to getting them to draw blood for "cancer research".

                                   

Night Doctors pg.155-169

Finally we find out information about Henrietta's children during a more relevant date! Rebecca Skloot planned and made an agreement to meet up with the Lacks family.

Rebecca first met Sonny Lacks in the lobby of a Holiday Inn in Baltimore. On that New Years day, Sonny drove Rebecca to their house and explaining how Rebecca was so hard-headed and never gave up on talking to the family in an admiral way.

Next Rebecca would meet Lawrence, who also seemed like a nice person, offering Rebecca pork and eggs.  Lawrence was curious about what kind of discoveries they made with Henrietta's cells because no one had them anything.

 Rebecca told them that through HeLa, scientists developed corneas, polio vaccine, cancer treatment, and more. Lawrence was astounded and kept saying it was a miracle. Lawrence and Sonny don't remember Henrietta much from their childhood, only the strict parts."I blacked it out of my mind because of the sadness and hurting". (Skloot 161)

 At this point the two sons said that Rebecca passed the test and all of the sudden she was able to meet and speak with Day Lacks(Henrietta's Husband) and Bobbette Lacks(Lawrence's Wife).

Day didn't seem like he was an angry person but rather calm. Bobbette seemed annoyed of the publicity of the HeLa cells and kind of talked to Rebecca like she was just any other news reporter. Day and most of the family suffered from health problems. But the whole family agreed not to get treatment from the hospital or else they would steal their cells again. Which I totally agree that Johns Hopkins Hospital would.

Then the subject about night doctors was brought up from Bobbette saying that doctors would kidnap African Americans during the night to perform experiment with drugs and incisions without any anestegia. I thought that was disgusting and I can't believe that it was true. Then they talked about the Ku Klux Klan abducting African Americans and killings during the night.

Lastly Day would make a remark that I thought was important towards the whole book. "What really would upset Henrietta is the fact that Dr.Gey never told the family anything -we didn't know nothing about those cells and he didn't care. That just rubbed us the wrong way. I just kept asking everybody, 'Why didn't they say anything to the family?' They knew how to contact us! If Dr. Gey wasn't dead, I think I would have killed him myself." (Skloot 169)

Until next time.............

The Most Critical Time/The HeLa Bomb pg.140-154

Finally revisiting the Lacks family after a couple chapters of genes and experimentation. Majority of the Lacks children were fine except for Crazy Joe and Deborah.

Lawrence owned a store in the basement of the old townhouse, Sonny graduated from high school, joined the air force, then honourably discharged.

Joe did not live a great lifestyle. He got crazier over the years, always getting into trouble and fighting. He had stabbed a man and faced 15 years in prison. Crazy Joe would find Islam and changed his name to Zakariyya Bari Abdul Rahman.

I feel so bad for Deborah... She seemed to always face adversity... She got pregnant in her junior year of high school. Cheetah(Deborah's Husband) was an alcoholic and would beat up Deborah. She would later leave Cheetah and would find refuge at her Father's house. Deborah struggled being a single mother while working two jobs.

In September 1966 geneticist Stanley Gartler and George Gey found a "technical problem" in their field. They would soon discuss the future of cell culture. "The room buzzed with excitement as everyone talked about cell cloning and hybrids, mapping human genes, and using cultures to cure cancer".(Skloot 152)

Gartler found an amazing discovery of how 18 of the most commonly used cell cultures had one thing in common. They all contained the same genetic marker called "glucose-6phosphate dehydrogenase-A (G6PD-A)". (Skloot 152)

The scientists made the breakthrough that since the HeLa cells came from a black woman that he found the answer for the problem. All the cell cultures are "all HeLa cell contaminants".

In this case, HeLa cells contaminated other cell cultures and scientists would soon enough had been growing and regrowing HeLa cells this whole time. The assumption occurred that a cure for cancer might not even exist....

                             

Illegal,Immoral, and Deplorable/Strangest Hybrid pg.125-139

These two chapters were kind of a blow your mind sort of chapters. It introduced scientists like Chester Southam. Chester Southam made a huge impact on cancer development and treatment but I didn't like how he did it.

Southam would perform cancer research on cancer patients by injecting HeLa cells into their arms and examined them for weeks. Although, the cancer patients didn't give him any consent to perform these experiments.

Southam would also look for volunteers to perform cancer research on. The Ohio prison inmates decided to volunteer for cancer research and development. 65 inmates would be injected with HeLa cells into their arms and tumors would grow.

 The prisoners were asked why they volunteered and they answered "I believe the wrong that I have done, in the eyes of society, this might make a right on it." (Skloot 129)

This chapter introduced me to the Nuremberg Code, where Nazi doctors were sentenced to death on August 20, 1947 and hung because of the inhumane experiments they would do on Jews.

There was a huge controversy relating Southam's experiments to the Nuremburg trials especially because he would perform these experiments without the patients consent.

It really pisses me off that there was a trend in scientists and doctors that back then they could get away with performing experiments on a live human body and taking cells.

Southam claimed that he had no idea of the Nuremberg Code even though it occurred about a decade prior. Southam would eventually be found guilty but was only penalized by being suspended of his license for a year.

I don't agree and I believe his punishment should have been more severe. If I found out he was injecting cancer cells into me for a mere experiment I would turn him down in a heartbeat! I also don't like how scientists would joke about Henrietta's cells so casually.