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".