The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot – Summary & Review

Imagine for a moment if you knew your cells were floating around the world, being sold for millions of dollars and you knew nothing about it and neither did your family. These cells are being used by researchers and scientists around the world – conducting countless experiments that have been used in the creation of vaccines, cancer research, and have even gone to space!

Sound like science fiction or impossible? It’s 100% possible and it’s exactly what happened to Henrietta Lacks. In 1951, Henrietta was diagnosed with cervical cancer. Before she died, shortly after being diagnosed, her cells were cut out from her cervix without her knowledge or consent. Surprisingly, her cells turned out to be immortal. These cells have now been utilized trillions of times in various medical research: “the polio vaccine, chemotherapy, cloning, gene mapping, [and] in vitro fertilization” (1). Her cells have been used so extensively since they reproduce “an entire generation every twenty-four hours, and they never [stop]. They became the first immortal human cells ever grown in a laboratory” (3).

The writer, Rebecca Skloot, wished to know more information about her, but was unable to locate specific and accurate details. Thus begins her own scientific journey into who Henrietta Lacks was, and her incredible contribution to science, to which her family was never made aware of until this book was being written.

She befriends Henrietta’s daughter, Deborah, even though they come from completely different paths, and they form a deep bond with one another; this bond enables Skloot to learn more about Henrietta as they delve into her past together. “Deborah believed Henrietta’s spirit lived on in in her cells, controlling the life of anyone who crossed its path. Including me.” Therefore, in doing the research for this book, and her strong connection with the family, “The Lackses challenged everything I thought I knew about faith, science, journalism, and race” (8).

My Review

This non-fiction book will capture your heart and make you question everything you know about science, doctors, and the rights you have over your body.

Was it legal for the doctors to take Henrietta’s cells with her knowledge or her consent? Absolutely. Is it morally and ethically wrong to do so? Absolutely!

This book caused my mouth to drop open on more than one occasion – I was SHOCKED to hear the legalities that DON’T exist when it comes to our own tissues and how doctors can use them. My eyes were opened to a whole new world and I found myself hopping on Google to learn more about the concepts and places she discusses in the book, as I am sure you will too.  I highly recommend this book, especially if you’d like to dive deeper into the world of science, cells, and human research, as well as the lives of African Americans in the early 1900s through the 1950s.

Rating: 4/5 stars

Beer Pairing:

• Basic _____! Pumpkin Spice Latte Milk Stout by Brew Bus Brewing: Since the novel is all about the cell – the basic building block of what makes us who we are – I figured a great Basic Bitch beer consumed during the fall was perfect.

• Wicked Easy by Sam Adams: This one is obvious, but it was wicked easy to steal her cells without her permission, just like it’s wicked easy to drink this smooth drinking beer!

If you’d like to give it a try (and support local bookstores), find the book here: Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks on Bookshop.org

If you’d like to check out the book on Amazon, find the book here: The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

Spoiler Alert: Summary & Discussion Questions

“We must not see any person as an abstraction. Instead, we must see in every person a universe with its own secrets, with its own treasures, with its own sources of anguish, and with some measure of triumph.” – Elie Wiesel

Deborah’s Voice

“If our mother’s cells done so much for medicine, how come her family can’t afford to see no doctors? People got rich off my mother without us even knowin” (12).

Discussion Question: What is your initial thought about scientists utilizing our cells/tissue/bodies without our knowledge?

Part One: Life

Chapter 1: The Exam

Henrietta goes to see a gynecologist at John Hopkins when she starts to feel pain after having sex with her husband, and she feels a painful knot on her womb. She doesn’t go to the doctor, for fear of them taking her womb, but later finds out she’s pregnant. Then, four and a half months after her baby is born, she finds blood in her underwear, and upon further inspection finds a lump on her cervix.

This is not the first time she has experienced unusual symptoms or received medical diagnoses that informed her she needed to seek further medical help. She has declined all recommended medical care up to this point – including finding blood in her urine, testing positive for gonorrhea and syphilis, and increased cell activity on her cervix.

The doctor finds a lump on her cervix, one that has grown exceptionally fast, and sends a sample back for testing.

Chapter 2: Clover

When Henrietta was four, her mother died giving birth to her tenth child. She was sent to live with a relative, her grandfather Tommy Lacks. Her cousin, David, also lived there, and who would later become her husband. When he was born, he was pronounced stillborn by a local white doctor, but the midwife was able to revive him and bring him back to life.

She and her cousins would help around the farm, working hard to take care of the animals, but they also enjoyed the country life – swimming in the creeks, having bonfires, and telling ghost stories at night. Once a month they traveled into town to help their grandfather sell tobacco, which had its fun moments, until they had to sleep on tobacco leaves in the underground warehouse where the animals slept, and liquor bottles littered the floor. The white folk, on the other hand, got to sleep in private rooms upstairs.

One of her cousins was crazy hot for her – so much so that they called him Crazy Joe – but she ended up with her other cousin, David, the man she shared a room with since she was four. They started having children when she was 14, and her second child was at 18. They married two years later, in 1941, right around when World War 1 began. Times were tight, as business was booming for large farmers and the government was giving away cigarettes for free to soldiers.

A cousin of theirs, named Fred, had moved north to start a new life in the steel mill. Due to the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the demand for steel rapidly increased, as did the need for workers and homes in the area.  Word spread all the way down, and black men traveled to the area for a new opportunity. It wasn’t easy work by any means – it was arduous and dangers; these men breathed in coal dust and asbestos, and then brought it home to their wives and children. They made at most 80 cents an hour, which at the time was great money, but white folks earned a higher wage.

Fred convinced David to come as well to earn higher wages and then bring Henrietta and the kids along later once he earned a livable income for them all. Fred got drafted, though, so he gave all his savings to David.

Discussion Question: Do you think the steel mill owners knew of the dangers of breathing in the coal dust?

Chapter 3: Diagnosis and Treatment

Henrietta receives the news that she in fact has Stage 1 cervical cancer. There were two varying opinions about how to treat cervical cancer at the time – most believed that tumors on the outside of the cervix did not need to be treated, while the ones on the inside should be treated aggressively. Dr. TeLinde argued that all cervical cancers were dangerous and should be treated as such – by removing most or all parts of the vagina to save the woman’s life.

Discovering these types of cancers was only recently possible due to the invention of the Pap smear which detected precancerous cells; this was huge since there were no prior symptoms that would alert a woman of the disease, and once it was discovered, it would be too late for a cure. Issues arose when women didn’t have the recommended Pap smear and doctors didn’t accurately interpret the results.

TeLinde wanted to fight for women to ensure they received the proper treatment, had biopsies before operating, and aggressively fighting all forms of cervical cancer, no matter the type of malignant tumor discovered. To conduct research to support his claims, “TeLinde often used patients from the public wards for research, usually without their knowledge. Many scientists believed that since patients were treated for free in the public wards, it was fair to use them as research subjects as a form of payment” (29).

There was a husband-and-wife duo who had been researching malignant cells outside of the body for over 30 years; their goal was to find human immortal cells they analyze. His name was George Gey, and he was known as the “world’s most famous vulture, feeding on human specimens almost constantly” (30). And this is the moment when Henrietta enters the picture.

Without telling anyone the diagnosis, she headed to the hospital and started her treatment, which included the use of radium – a popular form of treatment nationwide. During her first session, a doctor sliced off two pieces of her cervix, a piece from the tumor and a piece from the healthy part. Then, they were taken to Gey’s lab. Then, tubes of radium were inserted into her vagina and left there for two days.

Discussion Questions: Do you believe poor people were taken advantage of in this situation? How does that make you feel? Have you heard of the use of radium prior to this novel? Have you researched the historical use of radium and its consequences? What are your thoughts on the doctor’s taking a part of her cervix, or any tissue, without her knowledge or outright permission?

If you’d like to read the full summary, you can find it on Amazon, here: Kindle Edition. It also includes discussion questions that can be used in your own book club or to deepen your thinking.

If you’d like to give it a try (and support local bookstores), find the book here: Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks on Bookshop.org

If you’d like to check out the book on Amazon, find the book here: The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks