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.
Two days ago, an inspirational speaker named Kevin Laue came to our school and gave a speech to 4th-7th graders in the auditorium. Kevin is special because he only have 1 arm and a half. He is born on April 13, 1990, now he is 25 years old, his height is 6ft 11. He is an awesome basketball player. His dad is a race car driver. His parents divorced when he was 4 years old. Then, when he was 10, his dad died of cancer.
Kevin told us many stories about himself, but also, he told us lots of advice like: “Like the way you are”, “Don’t ever give up on anything”, “Work Hard”, “Don’t make excuses”, “Face the problem”, “I matter”, and “Believe in yourself”. These are lots and lots of fantastic advice.
Those advice could help me. For example, “Don’t ever give up”. It could help me through my school years, or even my whole life! Now, I’m practicing my piano for the piano contest in July. THe song is really hard and I always don’t want to practice. THis time, I could really use this advice. Another example is, “Like the way you are”. In school people are always gossiping and sometimes about people’s looks. When someone talks about the person’s looks, that person would feel really bad. but you just need to “Like the way you are”. Or, I am going to middle school next year. Of course, middle schoolers always thinks about looks, your appearance. People might think that they are different, and they hate themselves. But you are important, and that includes the “I matter” advice and have to “Like the way you are”.
I really think Kevin is positive. Even though he lost an arm, he still want to make his dream come true, and he did. He is now a basketball player. He is really popular and he changes people’s lives too. I really appreciate him to come to our school, or new auditorium and be the first important Inspiration Speaker. I would like to hear him talk again.
Here is the trailer of the movie Long Shot, which is talking about Kevin’s life:
Our class had a field trip to the Kenting Aquarium. We spent a night there. We did a lot of fun things. Like sleeping in the harbor tunnel, feeding fish, touching shark eggs, and more. Here are some pictures of the marine creatures:
In class, we are in groups and are studying different ecosystem. My group is Elliot, Jamie, and me. We are studying the Coral Reef ecosystem. Here is our ecosystem mini book:
In class, we wrote an essay about Island of the blue Dolphins. I chose to write about how Karana, the main character of the book, grow throughout the book.
Here is the book cover:
Here is my essay:
Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O’Dell, is a book based on a true story; however, O’Dell used his imaginations to create details. The book shows how Karana grows during different times.
Before the Aleuts came, Karana had jobs. She has a dad, Chief Chowig, the leader of the tribe, has an older sister, Ulape, and a younger brother, Ramo. They had no mom. Karana was still 12 years old then. They were all living happily until the Aleuts came….
After the Aleuts came, people died. They died because they had a battle. No family has not lost a father, husband, son, or brother. Karana, Ulape, and Ramo lost their father. Then the next leader of the tribe, Kimki, went to find a new land. When the ship came to pick them up to go to the land Kemki has found, Ramo was left on the island. Karana jumped into the water and swam towards the shore. They lived there for a few days, until Ramo got killed by a pack of wild dogs.
Karana lived alone on the island for about 18 years. Then, she was about 30 years old. During this time she tamed animals and she had a lot of animal here to hunt sea otters. She did not know what happen to her tribe until they told her that the ship sank. They brought her to Santa Barbara, but she soon died of a disease that was not familiar to her body.
I think Karana was really, really brave of living alone. I would not like to live alone and had lost my siblings and parents. I wish that she could have lived longer and know more about the world.
Our school’s Science Fair was on March 17. In our class, our science experiment was to build a Spaghetti bridge and test the strength of it. I built a Waddell A Truss bridge for my science experiment. Here is the picture of me and my bridge.
