In the non-fiction novel, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot, the setting contributes to the overall tone of the story in many ways. Foremost, this story takes place in the 1950s and the 1960s which is a gloomy time period as treatments for cancer have not yet been developed. Additionally, this novel is set during the time period of the Jim Crow Laws which allows us to conclude that African Americans were dealing with issues surrounding racism. Skloot portrays in her story, how modern-day racism affected both Henrietta’s overall treatment and future compensation as the immortal HeLa cells created for incredible advancements in medicine.
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks conveys the story of Henrietta Lacks who in the early 1950s discovered a hard lump on the left side of her cervix, after experiencing unexpected vaginal bleeding. She visited the Johns Hopkins Hospital in East Baltimore, which at the time was the only hospital in the area that would treat black patients (Brown, 2018). The gynecologist Henrietta saw, Howard Jones, discovered that she had a tumor on her cervix, which he took a biopsy of to send to the lab for a diagnosis. Henrietta was later informed by Dr. Jones the results of her biopsy which were, “Epidermoid carcinoma of the cervix, Stage 1”, also known as cervical cancer. Before her first radium treatment, surgeon Dr. Wharton took a sample of her cervical tumor as well as her healthy cervix tissue and proceeded to give this sampling to Dr. George Gey who had been trying to grow cells in his lab for several years. While Henrietta was recovering from her first treatment with radium, her cells were growing in George Gey’s lab without her knowledge or consent.
Henrietta’s cells began growing at an unbelievable rate in Dr. Gey’s lab and were nearly doubling every 24 hours. There were many doctors who were interested in the HeLa cells, so Dr. Gey invited doctors from all over the country to visit his lab. These doctors didn’t think HeLa cells would have a major impact on the medical industry, but they contributed to the creation of many vaccinations and research (Brown, 2018). HeLa cells helped scientists better understand the many types and strains of diseases as well as how vaccinations affect the human body.
Although Henrietta’s cells were used for a breakthrough in science and contributed to the polio vaccine, medical professionals looked at Henrietta as a science project and not a human being as the HeLa cells were taken without her permission (The Journal of Clinical Investigation, 2010). Author Rebecca Skloot reveals the inhumane medical treatment experienced by American Americans during the Jim Crow era. Henrietta was a poor African American woman undergoing treatment for cancer when she was victimized by medical professionals who failed to involve her in decisions that affected her health. After Henrietta had passed away, medical professionals continued to abuse the access to her cells as they continued using her tissues for research. Furthermore, doctors and researchers were receiving awards for their achievements but had failed to identify Henrietta as a person and only recognized her as the specimen known as HeLa. Henrietta Lacks never once received recognition for her contribution to medical science and her family never received any relief as they were not even informed of her contributions or significance to the medical industry.
The history of segregation played a significant role in the story of Henrietta Lacks. When Henrietta lived in Turnover Station, Maryland between the early 1940s and 1950s, Jim Crow Laws were still in effect. Jim Crow Laws included any type of law that enforced racial segregation in the south between 1877 and the civil rights movement in the 1950s (Urofsky, 2018). During the time Henrietta became sick, many hospitals refused to treat African American people even if their medical needs were critical. John Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland is where Henrietta was treated and was one of the only hospitals that admitted black patients at the time. However, these individuals were treated in a special "colored” section with no private accommodations and they were not permitted to enter other parts of the hospital. Black people were discouraged from questioning doctors, especially white doctors and medical terms were never explained to them. Henrietta often no-showed for her follow up appointments and many black people avoided going to the doctors until the need was urgent. For many years doctors and nurses offered reluctant and insufficient care to African American patients. This approach was very dangerous in medical research involving African Americans and often, medical professionals ignored the rights to patient privacy, informed consent, and human decency (Brown, 2018).
Racial and ethnic disparities in healthcare originate from social class, race, and ethnicity. These factors affect the delivery of healthcare to many different groups in the United States. Many of United States citizens take their healthcare for granted, however, there is a large portion of Americans that do not have easy access to care. Disparities are found to arise from a historical and social context in which racial and ethnic minorities receive less access to health care, resulting in a larger socioeconomic disadvantage among minority groups. When differences in treatment, insurance, access to care, health status, and other factors are eliminated, racial and ethnic health care disparities remain. Doctors are very susceptible to these biases as situations that promote these biases include time pressure, incomplete information, high demand on attention and cognitive resources which frequently occur in doctor-patient interactions. Evidence from patient surveys has indicated that racial and ethnic minority patients are far more likely than white patients to believe that discrimination is a problem in healthcare and that they have personally experienced discriminatory treatment. More research is needed to better understand the issue of racial and ethnic disparities in care and to specifically assess how physicians' race, ethnicity, or gender may influence their attitudes towards patients (Unequal Treatment, 2002).
Henrietta Lacks spent her life fighting for her family and herself as she was put through months of pain trying to reduce the spread of her cancer without proper amounts of medication. During those months, she had parts of her body and genetic makeup taken from her without her knowledge or consent. Under the Common Rule of 1981, which was established to protect biomedical and behavioral research involving human subjects, Henrietta would have been protected. To be more exact, the common rule provides baseline standards of ethics by which any government-funded research in the United States must hold their searchers to regardless of funding. It was designed to protect the rights and well-being of human subjects of research regardless of the research is subject to federal regulation (Seligson, 2008). Henrietta’s cells made history as they were being sent from country to country and researcher to researcher. However, neither she or her family received any credit or compensation for more than ten years after her death. Henrietta has made a dramatic impact on the scientific industry as she contributed to the establishment of new vaccines and the discovery of once unknown information regarding DNA.