Throughout the book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Skloot compares the ethical sacrifices that the doctors made with the impressive progression in medicine. Henrietta Lacks was a black woman who was diagnosed with cervical cancer at Johns Hopkins. During the first treatment, Dr. Lawrence Wharton Jr. did something before the treatment that would be condemned in modern medicine.
“But first—though no one had told Henrietta that TeLinde was collecting samples or asked if she wanted to be a donor—Wharton picked up a sharp knife and shaved two dim-sized pieces of tissue from Henrietta’s cervix…” (33).
This was done due to Dr. George Gey’s goal was to somehow grow immortal cells. He was another doctor at Johns Hopkins and often non consensually took biopsies of patients, violating hundreds of privacy. The two pieces of tissues were later transported to Dr. Gey’s lab, where the later named HeLa cells grew immortally. This event led to a big conflict: to protect or not to protect one’s privacy?
Another incident involved Chester Southam, who was a virologist, wanted to understand what would happen when HeLa cells are injected into humans. The way Southam conducted this experiment was problematic.
“[Southam] repeated this process with about a dozen other cancer patients. He told them he was testing their immune systems; he said nothing about injecting them with someone else’s malignant cells” (128).
Southam did not inform his patients properly, violating their privacy and bodies. Imagine being injected with malignant cells thinking that they are for your immune systems.
Informed consent is essential in medical practices. Martin Salgo was not informed of any risks of his procedure.
“He went under anesthesia for what he thought was a routine procedure and woke up permanently paralyzed from the waist down” (132).
This did not only violate Martin’s privacy as a person, but also put him at such a dangerous risk. Doctors treated patients as
Privacy being ignored for one’s own benefits occurs frequently. Most of the times, news would report a celebrity’s social media being hacked. Even Mark Zuckerberg’s own Facebook page was hacked. These hackers disregard the privacy of the original owners of the accounts often for the fun. Other time, professional hackers do earn money from hacking intothe accounts and obtaining private information. This modern example of ignoring other people’s privacy also shows how different periods of time can affect the same kind of situation.
Citation
Skloot, Rebecca. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. New York, Random House, 2010.
