The book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks is a non-fiction story about the birth of HeLa cells and how they came about benefitting the research and development in science. These cells contributed to many improvements and forward processes for cures to things like polio and other common diseases. I believe this book effectively illustrates the significance of Henrietta Lack’s life. It addresses how her cells were taken without her permission but explains how they were used in research to help with polio vaccines and getting closer to finding a cure. I don’t believe the book explained the impact that was made to Henrietta’s family as well. The example from the book found on page 193 and reads “He explained the concept of cells as best he could, told them about the media reports that had already appeared about HeLa, and promised he’d send them copies to read. At that point no one in Henrietta’s immediate family except Deborah seemed particularly upset about Henrietta’s story or the existence of those cells.” It mentions that her family did not really understand what cells were and how they are used until it mentioned money in the mix. Then the brothers were all in and wanted part of the money being received. They perceive the family out to be money hungry beings and only cared about HeLa’s cells when someone else was making a profit from them.
I agree with Lengauer’s quote that it is important to know about Henrietta Lacks. She was wrongly used as a research doll and was never even given the chance to approve of anyone using her cells for research and development. There is a quote on page 193 that states, “cell lines are swapped, traded, forwarded, begged, and borrowed among research institutions around the world. The institutional sources of cells now range from government supported facilities like Nelson-Ree’s to commercial outfits with toll-free eight hundred numbers, from whom one can order, for about twenty-five dollars, a tiny glass vial of HeLa’s cells.” These cells were widely used in research all over the world and it should be known whom and what started this entire thing to happen because without Henrietta Lacks, none of the medical research we have today would have been possible.
Learning about HeLa’s story really has me thinking about what kind of ethical leader I want to be when I get started in my career. I can learn from this book that taking something as small as a cell from someone without asking their permission, is absolutely unethical. Even though these cells ended up benefitting in the medical world, the ends do not always justify the means. Just because they had good intentions with the cells, doesn’t mean what they did was right. It’s never ethical to take something from someone. I can hope that this book allows me to become the ethical health care leader that people can trust. There are a few things that medical professionals can do to avoid any unethical practices in their facilities and other areas. The first thing is to always make sure that your organization is following the proper procedure when obtaining a patient’s health information. Either fax this info to get it from another facility or call and ask them to send over the medical records via fax or secured email. Most of the time emails are hard to keep secured so faxing them is the best option. Another good thing that can be practiced to avoid unethical problems is to make sure that all of your patient’s health information is kept confidential and only shared with those the patient allows. Keep an updated record of you patient’s list of health info sharing. This keeps any issues from springing up shall the issue arise.
I agree with Lengauer’s quote that it is important to know about Henrietta Lacks. She was wrongly used as a research doll and was never even given the chance to approve of anyone using her cells for research and development. There is a quote on page 193 that states, “cell lines are swapped, traded, forwarded, begged, and borrowed among research institutions around the world. The institutional sources of cells now range from government supported facilities like Nelson-Ree’s to commercial outfits with toll-free eight hundred numbers, from whom one can order, for about twenty-five dollars, a tiny glass vial of HeLa’s cells.” These cells were widely used in research all over the world and it should be known whom and what started this entire thing to happen because without Henrietta Lacks, none of the medical research we have today would have been possible.
Learning about HeLa’s story really has me thinking about what kind of ethical leader I want to be when I get started in my career. I can learn from this book that taking something as small as a cell from someone without asking their permission, is absolutely unethical. Even though these cells ended up benefitting in the medical world, the ends do not always justify the means. Just because they had good intentions with the cells, doesn’t mean what they did was right. It’s never ethical to take something from someone. I can hope that this book allows me to become the ethical health care leader that people can trust. There are a few things that medical professionals can do to avoid any unethical practices in their facilities and other areas. The first thing is to always make sure that your organization is following the proper procedure when obtaining a patient’s health information. Either fax this info to get it from another facility or call and ask them to send over the medical records via fax or secured email. Most of the time emails are hard to keep secured so faxing them is the best option. Another good thing that can be practiced to avoid unethical problems is to make sure that all of your patient’s health information is kept confidential and only shared with those the patient allows. Keep an updated record of you patient’s list of health info sharing. This keeps any issues from springing up shall the issue arise.