From de74711d129a319a8fd8b8b96866bcb2d77262ef Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Holden Rohrer Date: Sun, 11 Oct 2020 22:10:03 -0400 Subject: read The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot --- markley/16_hela | 172 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 1 file changed, 172 insertions(+) create mode 100644 markley/16_hela (limited to 'markley/16_hela') diff --git a/markley/16_hela b/markley/16_hela new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ae60fcd --- /dev/null +++ b/markley/16_hela @@ -0,0 +1,172 @@ +# The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks + +Chapter 12 + +Henrietta Lacks is dissected, and the inhuman dissection in the morgue +contrasts with her stark humanity in her funeral and the deep pain that +she was in because of the tumors (were they prolonged for the medical +experiment). +Also: it's legal to take cells from living people w/o consent, but +autopsies require consent of relatives. +Her ?husband (Day) consented to a partial autopsy and they took a bunch +of samples. +body "filled with pearls" and huge tumors across her body. + +Chapter 13 +A HeLa culture is developed: Henrietta's cells grow in a magnetically +stirred medium and can be transported with little care. +There is a polio pandemic going on, and the vaccine needs to be tested +on primate (human or monkey) cells. +Monkey cells are expensive, so human culture is far preferable. +Tuskegee Institute builds factory to mass-produce HeLa culture. +Originally given only to polio researchers but later widened to all +researchers for $10 plus Air Express fees. +- Widened research opportunies for in vitro infections, proteins, etc +Doctor Gey is the discoverer of HeLa. +This develops the field of tissue culture greatly: how viruses work, +freezing cells, standardization in the field (same cells, media, method) +Chromosome count, cloning discovered and perfected. +Tuskegee Institute superceded by Microbiological Associates +mass-producing cells and overnighting them +Gey wanted to move on from HeLa, but he was renowned for it, and his +colleagues pushed him to publish. He tired of it. +Gey still wanted some control over HeLa, and had created some +unpublished research, but prematurely turned HeLa into "general +scientific property." +He created other cell lines, but they didn't take off like HeLa + +Chapter 14 +The cat is out of the bag: "Henrietta Lane" is released as the owner of +the cells as early as 1953 (first publicized in 1951). +Gey, when approached by journalists, denies the use of her real name or +backstory. +I think this is probably out of fear of backlash from her family. +Called by pseudonym Helen L. "Unsung hero of medicine," while Gey still +has much sway + +Chapter 15 + +Day, Henrietta's husband, had three kids: Deborah, Sonny, and baby Joe. +After they got tuberculosis between one and four, cousins Ethel and +Galen moved in. Ethel was horrifically abusive of Joe and the others, +probably because she hated Henrietta. Day kept what happened to +Henrietta from his kids, and they didn't ask because they were taught to +keep quiet. Galen molested Deborah repeatedly, but with their eldest +brother Lawrence and Bobetta's help, the children eventually got out of +the situation after six terrible years. (the abusers were still around, +but Lawrence and Bobetta housed them and helped protect them) + +Chapter 16 + +Skloot is interviewing Lackses. +Cootie recammends she go talk to one of the other cousins about +Henrietta, whom he remembers well. Shows her the grave site where she is +buried with the white people. +But Lacks Town and Clover are plagued by poor race relations. Most of +the black Lackses have white ancestry who inherited parts of the +plantation, but there is also an old constituent of white Lackses in +Clover who don't want to "intermix" (confederate flag people). They +won't admit they are related by blood to the black Lackses. +Lillian, Henrietta's sister, moved out to NY and "converted to Puerto +Rican" because she didn't want to be black anymore. +There were lynchings and the Klan into the 1980s, but people claimed +that race relations weren't bad. + +Chapter 17 + +Chester Southam---"Illegal, Immoral, and Deplorable" +He, without consent, tested Henrietta's cells on people w/ and then w/o +cancer, believing that there was significant possibility of risk of them +getting cancer, under the guise of testing "immune systems." +He also tested prison populations. +This was 16 years after (1966) the Nuremberg trials and eventually outed +by Jewish doctors he asked to help him continue his "research." +Informed consent was poorly established in the courts and in physician +communities, but the Nuremberg Code had created a single ethical +standard lawyers could point to. +Southam and co-conspirator Mandel only got one-year probations, and +their professional careers were hardly affected. +But they did make a long-lasting change to the medical +profession---requiring informed consent was the standard. +Scientists warned this would halt scientific research, but it didn't. + +Chapter 18 + +The cell tissue research community begins to worry about cell +intercontamination and has the NIH begin preserving cells and immortal +cell lines as securely as possible, and testing for cross-species and +viral/antibacterial contamination. +"Cell sex" or somatic cell fusion is a new invention. +Previously, geneticists could only test plants or mice with high +reproductive counts and low gestation periods, but now cells can be +intermixed with certain viruses to test how diseases work from genes and +the basic discovery of the immune system. +PR nightmare about scientists creating monsters. + +Chapter 19 + +The Lacks family are at best struggling. Joe, who was most severely +abused by Ethel, becomes incredibly violent. He joins the military but +is kicked out because of his violence. Back at home, he kills a man +named Ivy in an alcohol-induced rage. He goes to court and receives 15 +of 30 possible years when pleading guilty, finds Islam when in jail, and +becomes Zakariyya. +Deborah wants to kill Cheetah, whom impregnated her at age sixteen. She +makes several attempts, but Bobetta eventually talks her down and +Deborah takes the kids with her---getting a second job and becoming a +single mother. + +Chapter 20 + +HeLa contaminates dozens of cell lines because it can travel on dust and +is extremely hardy. +This is revealed by Stanley Gartler and lauded by Robert Stevenson, +although many scientists are disappointed by the invalidation of many +results in the tissue culture community. +Spontaneous transformation (of normal cells into cancer cells) was a +myth. + +Chapter 21 + +The first bit is an interview with most of the remaining (now old) Lacks +family. She meets Sonny, after she was stood up two months ago and he +shows up two hours late. He brings her to Lawrence, the eldest, who is +now sixty-four. He doesn't even know what a cell is, since "nobody tells +us [anything? nothing?]." Day feels wronged by Hopkins for lying to him +about that the autopsy would allow them to take her cells by saying it +"could help his children." + +Bobette enunciates this distrust of Jon Hopkins by talking about how +they would kidnap black people to experiment on them. +This is mostly not true of Hopkins---although it is true of other "night +doctors" in other cities. +The fear was helped perpetuated by plantation owners who wanted to +discourage slaves from organizing and shows up in many black oral +histories. +Jon Hopkins, however, was created as a charity for poor and colored +people, which is why it was constructed in Baltimore. +However, there were still many violations of black people's rights, such +as willful lead poisoning, unconsented gene sampling, and Henrietta. +Lawrence: "If our mother so important to science, why can't we get +health insurance?" +Sonny believes Hopkins didn't snatch black people but they did willfully +keep the Lacks in the dark because, Sonny thinks, they made money. +There is anger at Hopkins and Gey for maligning the Lacks family. + +Chapter 22 + +George Gey got pancreatic cancer and wanted his team to remove a sample +and create a (possibly immortal) cell line GeGe. The cancer was +inoperable, so he resorted to volunteering for random less-approved +medical trials instead, one for a drug making him violently ill, until +he died. +After his death, in 1970, his colleagues released notes about +Henrietta's misdiagnosis---which wouldn't have changed her treatment, +unintentionally releasing her name. +At this time, the War on Cancer is going on, but the contamination +problem is still raging. +Walter Nelson-Rees, for the National Cancer Institute, is publishing a +"HeLa Hit List" of contaminated cell lines. +J Douglas, a biologist at Brunei University, wants to find out He..La.'s +true identity. + -- cgit