Amy Le 12/14/12 The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks Reflection Rebecca Skloot’s novel, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, addresses many important issues. The issues explored in this book are mainly about Hela cells, racial equality and bioethics. Skloot examines many of these topics throughout her novel, but the most important issues I think stuck in my mind most would have to be bioethics and racial equality. I felt that these two issues were the most important because these issues are still important today. Regarding the issue of racial equality, Skloot’s novel talks about the bad past the United States had with racism.
He has written many books and in this on in particular he criticizes the prevalence of Native American and African American studies programs. His complaints about these programs stem from the fact that “people who support these programs assume that by communicating the best aspects of a group they have somehow solved the major problems of that group in its relations with the rest of society.” His essay makes many comments about the evolution of stereotypes and how certain oppressed groups of people are viewed over time. A quote that would be applicable to a gender/popular culture essay can be found on page 733, “The problem of stereotyping is not so much a racial problem as it is a problem of limited knowledge and perspective.” (Applicable to gender stereotypes as
Not one of the researchers believed that testing and overserving the men was unethical. Because the participants did not know in reality what they were being tested for, this study was wrongfully executed. Finally, the study showcased influential power. The testes were offered small yet desirables things such as free checkups, therapy if necessary, and rides to the clinics. Being that the subjects were financially handicapped, they willingly agreed to be tested for “bad blood.” Overall, this study was wrong morally.
Nduka Onuchukwu Shiladitya, Sen College Writing September 18, 2012 Rough Draft The Individuals Right The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks shows how an individual’s personal rights can be effortlessly breached when it involves medical science and research. Being in their position, doctors could say many things to a patient that the patient could deem true, and what was really the truth, was kept confidential to those who only studied science. “Everybody knew black people were disappearing cause Hopkins was experimenting on them!” (Skloot 169) clarified the mindset of the people, specifically Bobbette in this quote, who did not know and were kept out of the loop. The conflict of the plot, and in society at the time, is whether it wrong for a doctor to take samples from a person’s body without them knowing? It could be seen as immoral, but what if Henrietta had been told her cells were going to be used for testing?
Do minorities and whites engage in self segregation? I agree with Beverly D. Tatum from the book “Taking Sides”. I think we do self-segregate and that is because of the society we are brought up in. In today’s modern society African Americans do not sit in the back of the bus or go to separate schools however there is still segregation. I think it is because of two basic reasons; firstly, as Tatum points out, one can relate better with peers of their own race because they too understand the difficulties of being a minority.
Olivia Brice English 101 Ms. Hesse Racism Today People believe that racism is defined as the belief that there are characteristically and biologically different traits in the ‘human racial groups’ that justify discrimination. In Appiah’s essay he expresses how race is not a biologically different thing, but is instead a social concept or idea. Racism is what people call this social idea about race, and how it makes people differ from one another. At one point in history racism was very distinct and easy to spot, but by looking at an article from recent years we can see that racism still exists but is hidden and overlooked and that people are not considered to be racist, although they are. So what does it mean to be racist today?
After going through experimental drug treatment, which were unsuccessful, Mrs. Adkins decided to contact Dr. Kevorkian. Janet Adkins was still living her life as normal as any other healthy person. She was not debilitated by her illness. According to Dr. Murray Raskind, Mrs Adkins personal physician, she and her husband belong to a right to die organization, known as the Hemlock Society, and that Janet Adkins did not have the patience for the Alzheimer treatment that Dr. Murray had administered. It is claimed that Janet did not want to continue living her life if her illness could not be haulted.
This went on throughout the film. Vivian was diagnosed with stage four cancer and she had no family, this lead to her to be used as a teaching tool for cancer. Dr. Posner showed the most disrespect for Vivian. Even though he was her a previous student of hers and he had a great deal of respect for her, he showed little compaction for her and her situation. He knew she was a strong, independent woman and this lead him to believe she could handle everything she was going through.
Henrietta Lacks is a woman who died of cervical cancer in 1951. Henrietta did not live a long live, Henrietta grew up on a farm and never really complained about her problems until she became aware of cancer when she gave birth to her child, she complained about the pain she had and became really concerned about the problem when she started experiencing vaginal bleeding at the wrong time of the months; She decided to see a doctor that later informed Henrietta of cervical cancer which have been growing at a fast rate. Scientists found her cells to be different due to the cells’ unique structure which allowed them to survive for long periods of time consequently allowing HeLa cells to reproduce indefinitely. It was a major scientific discovery because prior to this, scientists have been failing their attempts to recreate the reproduction process using countless numbers of different human cells in their labs in order to learn about the cells’ reproduction process. They named those cells “HeLa”.
The person who best fits this example is talked about by author Rebecca Skloot in her book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. Skloot talks about Henrietta’s life as a child,how her family suffered, and mainly how Henrietta’s dignity was breached. Skloot describes how Henrietta had no idea what was going on with her treatment when she says, “Henrietta knew nothing about her cells growing in a laboratory. After leaving the hospital, she went back to life as usual”(42). This shows how doctors and scientists never informed Henrietta about anything about her treatment, in the only hospital that would take her, Johns Hopkins.