Science writer Rebecca Skloot is on to talk about her (first) book,The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. Sounds interesting:
You might well owe your health — maybe even your life — to Henrietta Lacks. You probably never heard of her. Yet she contributed immeasurably to vaccines, drugs and other treatments for polio, influenza, hemophilia, Parkinson's disease, HIV and many kinds of cancer. She helped scientists develop in vitro fertilization and cloning, map the human genome and study the effects of radiation from atomic bombs and in outer space.
And she never knew about any of it.
Science journalist Rebecca Skloot's riveting debut book, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, is the story of how a cell sample taken from a poor, black mother of five as she lay dying of cervical cancer in 1951 turned into one of the most versatile and widely used tools in modern medicine. It's also the story of Lacks herself and how the family she left behind has been affected by her strange journey. And it raises important questions about medical ethics, particularly who owns — and potentially profits from — the tissues and fluids that doctors take from patients every day.... (~Colette Bancroft, Tampabay.com)
There are a whole lot of reviews out there -- both Amazon and B&N gave it a spotlight -- and a couple excerpts. A bunch of radio/TV interviews, too. This is from an interview with the Smithsonian:
When did her family find out about Henrietta’s cells?
Twenty-five years after Henrietta died, a scientist discovered that many cell cultures thought to be from other tissue types, including breast and prostate cells, were in fact HeLa cells. It turned out that HeLa cells could float on dust particles in the air and travel on unwashed hands and contaminate other cultures. It became an enormous controversy. In the midst of that, one group of scientists tracked down Henrietta’s relatives to take some samples with hopes that they could use the family’s DNA to make a map of Henrietta’s genes so they could tell which cell cultures were HeLa and which weren’t, to begin straightening out the contamination problem.
So a postdoc called Henrietta’s husband one day. But he had a third-grade education and didn’t even know what a cell was. The way he understood the phone call was: "We’ve got your wife. She’s alive in a laboratory. We’ve been doing research on her for the last 25 years. And now we have to test your kids to see if they have cancer." Which wasn’t what the researcher said at all. The scientists didn’t know that the family didn’t understand. From that point on, though, the family got sucked into this world of research they didn’t understand, and the cells, in a sense, took over their lives.
What are the lessons from this book [for non-scientists]?
The story of HeLa cells and what happened with Henrietta has often been held up as an example of a racist white scientist doing something malicious to a black woman. But that’s not accurate. The real story is much more subtle and complicated. What is very true about science is that there are human beings behind it and sometimes even with the best of intentions things go wrong.
One of the things I don’t want people to take from the story is the idea that tissue culture is bad. So much of medicine today depends on tissue culture. HIV tests, many basic drugs, all of our vaccines—we would have none of that if it wasn’t for scientists collecting cells from people and growing them. And the need for these cells is going to get greater, not less. Instead of saying we don’t want that to happen, we just need to look at how it can happen in a way that everyone is OK with.
Another review includes this:
In time, Deborah Lacks joins forces with Skloot. The trail takes them to where it all began: Johns Hopkins. They meet Christoph Lengauer, a researcher who believes that the Lackses have been treated poorly and should be entitled to some of the proceeds from sales of their mother’s cell lines; the economically struggling family suggests they would like most of all to have health insurance. Lengauer invites Skloot, Deborah and her brother Zakariyya to see the HeLa cells.
"Her cells are how it all started,’’ Lengauer tells them. "Once there is a cure for cancer, it’s definitely largely because of your mother’s cells."
"Amen," says Deborah, a deeply religious woman who has by now come to believe that the spirit of her mother lives on in those cells. They look through a microscope and see the cells divide right before their eyes.
If you're not in the habit of following all my links, these two are worth reading: CBS Sunday Morning gives more background and detail ("They used to tell me stories about my mother, you know? She was a giver," said Sonny. "And she's doing it, you know? She's still giving.
"And to me, it just feels good about that. Mama, who gave so much, Henrietta Lacks is still living today." ); and BoingBoing goes into the ethics discussion.
Skloot has set up the Henrietta Lacks Foundation, to
provide financial assistance in the form of scholarships to the descendants of Henrietta Lacks; it will also work to provide the Lacks family aid in covering the cost of health insurance, giving those who have benefited from HeLa cells — including scientists, universities, corporations, and the general public — a way to show thanks to Henrietta and her family. The foundation also hopes to offer assistance to other African Americans in need who are pursuing education in science and medicine.
Some of the books' proceeds are going to the foundation (which is accepting donations, and has applied for but hasn't yet received 501(c)(3)status). The family also has a site with a paypal link, because why the hell not?
Anyway, should be a good interview. |