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Loading... The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacksby Rebecca Skloot
  
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 KittyCunningham | Apr 26, 2021 |  A fascinating insight into both the life of Henrietta Lacks and her HeLa cells which have contributed so much to modern medicine. (  ) Aetherson | Apr 26, 2021 | I've decided not to torture myself any longer, so I'm not finishing this book. I feel deceived, I delved into The Night Circus fully prepared to be amazed. There just isn't enough action to push this story along. The idea is intriguing, with tons of potential, but it gets lost in the frantic setting changes and perpetual descriptions. Yawn. (  ) mbellucci | Apr 10, 2021 | Fascinating. (  ) mbellucci | Apr 10, 2021 | I'm of two minds about this book. On the one hand, I enjoyed the scientific side of the story: the horror that was scientific research in the 1950s and the decades before informed consent became common practice; the discussion about cells and the research that can be conducted with them; and the legal and ethical ramifications of scientific research. In our world of HIPAA and institutional review boards, the information given in this book was both mind-opening and mind-blowing. I did not enjoy what I felt was emotional manipulation on the part of the author. Look at these people and their horrible lives! Feel sorry for how poorly treated they've been! Their mother's cells have been used for research for years, yet they have no health insurance! To be clear, I'm NOT a cold-hearted person. I believe everyone should have healthcare, regardless of their ability to pay for it. But this book wasn't about the state of the American health care system, as such. Nor was it, I'm sure, meant to be commentary on class or race issues in America. Yet those things were brought into the book, and I felt that they detracted from the real story, which was these amazing cells that survive and proliferate. Of course, that story by itself would have yielded a much shorter book, and perhaps a story that's already been told. I didn't get the sense, despite what the author may have wished, that Henrietta was treated that much differently than any other woman with "female troubles" would have been in 1951. Surely, the segregation of Blacks and the complete lack of privacy given them in the hospital was deplorable, but I don't know that she would have gotten a different medical treatment - radiation, etc. - had she been a white woman with the same disease. I think her complaints would have been written off by the male doctors no matter who she was. In book group, I posed the question of whether Henrietta's children would have turned out much differently had she lived, and the consensus was that the youngest would have had a much different life, a more secure, less anger-filled existence. But I don't know if it would have changed the overall outlook for the family. I also felt that the author put herself into the story way too much, insinuating herself with the family when they were resistant to it -- continually resistant to it. There was no reporterly detachment here. The medical and scientific aspect of this book is fascinating for anyone who is interested in such things; the family stuff detracts from the rest. I would like to thank my book group for helping me solidify my thoughts on this book. (  ) ssperson | Apr 4, 2021 |
 Skloot narrates the science lucidly, tracks the racial politics of medicine thoughtfully and tells the Lacks family’s often painful history with grace. She also confronts the spookiness of the cells themselves, intrepidly crossing into the spiritual plane on which the family has come to understand their mother’s continued presence in the world. Science writing is often just about “the facts.” Skloot’s book, her first, is far deeper, braver and more wonderful. I put down Rebecca Skloot’s first book, “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks,” more than once. Ten times, probably. Once to poke the fire. Once to silence a pinging BlackBerry. And eight times to chase my wife and assorted visitors around the house, to tell them I was holding one of the most graceful and moving nonfiction books I’ve read in a very long time. Writing with a novelist's artistry, a biologist's expertise, and the zeal of an investigative reporter, Skloot tells a truly astonishing story of racism and poverty, science and conscience, spirituality and family, all driven by a galvanizing inquiry into the sanctity of the body and the very nature of the life force. Henrietta Lacks died of cervical cancer in a “colored” hospital ward in Baltimore in 1951. She would have gone forever unnoticed by the outside world if not for the dime-sized slice of her tumor sent to a lab for research eight months earlier. ... Skloot, a science writer, has been fascinated with Lacks since she first took a biology class at age 16. As she went on to earn a degree in the subject, she yearned to know more about the woman, anonymous for years, who was responsible for those ubiquitous cells.... Skloot tells a rich, resonant tale of modern science, the wonders it can perform and how easily it can exploit society's most vulnerable people. Has as a reference guide/companion
Her name was Henrietta Lacks, but scientists know her as HeLa. She was a poor Southern tobacco farmer, yet her cells--taken without her knowledge--became one of the most important tools in medicine. The first "immortal" human cells grown in culture, they are still alive today, though she has been dead for more than sixty years. HeLa cells were vital for developing the polio vaccine; uncovered secrets of cancer and viruses; helped lead to in vitro fertilization, cloning, and gene mapping; and have been bought and sold by the billions. Yet Henrietta Lacks is buried in an unmarked grave. Her family did not learn of her "immortality" until more than twenty years after her death, when scientists began using her husband and children in research without informed consent. The story of the Lacks family is inextricably connected to the dark history of experimentation on African Americans, the birth of bioethics, and the legal battles over whether we control the stuff we are made of. No library descriptions found. |
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Book Discussion: The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks ~ SPOILER FREE~
Wikipedia in English (5)
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There are many answers here. And it is a great beginning to a necessary conversation. (