Ben's February Pick

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot

    February is Black History Month and there is no shortage of applicable books to read for the occasion. Uncle Tom’s Cabin, To Kill a Mockingbird, Invisible Man, and The Help are but a few examples. Nor is there a dearth of extraordinary individuals to read about; Frederick Douglass, Booker T. Washington, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Harriet Tubman, The Freedom Riders, and the Tuskegee Airmen are examples. However, there is one especially phenomenal book to read on a particular African- American woman that has had perhaps the biggest direct impact on all of us individually, on society as a whole, and on posterity. Despite her significance there is only one surviving photograph of her and her grave is an unknown location without a tombstone.
     The woman is Henrietta Lacks and the book is The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot. The cultures from the cervical cancer that cost Henrietta her life at the age of 31 in 1951 gave rise to the famous, and vastly important, immortal cell line known to scientist as HeLa. The importance of these cells on research is impossible to quantify. Jonas Salk used HeLa cells in creating the first polio vaccine in 1954, and HeLa cells have since been used for research into cancer, AIDS, gene mapping, the effects of radiation, medicinal chemistry, and countless other pursuits. Additionally, HeLa cells were present on the first space missions to test the effect of zero gravity on human cells. By 2009, according to Skloot, “More than 60,000 scientific articles had been published about research done on HeLa, and that number was increasing steadily at a rate of more than 300 papers each month.”
     HeLa cells are so-called “immortal” because they can divide an infinite number of times in standard living conditions. Where most cells are limited by the number of times they can divide by the degradation of the protective caps at the ends of their chromosomes, called telomeres, during chromosomal replication for cell division. This is the process implicated in aging. HeLa cells however, contain an active enzyme, telomerase, that prevents this degradation of telomeres making the cells a fountain of youth. This fact coupled with the cells intrinsic high rate of proliferation makes them ideal for scientific research and the development of new medicines and therapies.
      It is hard to imagine how Henrietta herself remains so obscure when her cells are so prolific in the scientific community and so instrumental in research and discovery. The simple reason is that legally the cells do not belong to her. Henrietta grew up in rural Virginia in abject poverty farming the same tobacco fields her slave predecessors did. Moreover, she lived in a rundown barely habitable log cabin that was once used as slave quarters. When she got sick her access to health care was limited and she had to be treated at Johns Hopkins as it was the only hospital available to her that treated black patients. During her treatment for the cancer she would soon succumb to, a culture of her cells were taken without her consent or even her knowledge. Although her cells have been sold by the billions around the world and fostered countless revenues in medicinal industry her descendants still can not afford health insurance. This elegantly written book and powerful work of non-fiction will enlighten and challenge your understanding of medical ethics, social justice, racial inequalities, gene patenting, patient rights and privacy, the plight of poverty, and health care in this country. All issues with striking importance and parallels to today.
    --- Ben