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Section 5 - The Lacks Family (Backstory for Henrietta Lacks (The lack of…
Section 5 - The Lacks Family
Backstory for Henrietta Lacks
The lack of education
Didn't fully understand cancer, cells, other scientific terms
Married to first cousin - less educated
Humanises the cells and allows the audience to empathise with the personal side to the story
Fictional Names
Helen Lane, Helen Larson, Henrietta Lakes
Gey did this to protect the identity of Henrietta and her family to stop them from being connected to the cells forever
This meant the family did not discover the cells were in existence for twenty five years
The HeLa Bomb
Scientists began culturing other types of cells for research
Became much easier to culture - cells contaminated by HeLa
Contained G6PD-A - mainly found in DNA of African-Americans
Formulate genetic tests to identify HeLa cells in culture
Contacted Lacks family
Take blood samples to study for genetic markers
Again, no effort for informed consent was made
The effect
Fear and anxiety of the family of what the scientists were doing to Henrietta as they didn't fully understand what a cell is or how there was a part of Henrietta still alive
The release of the Lacks DNA
The law on patient confidentiality
The effect that this might have had on their lives and the disregard for the family's privacy
Relate this back to Tuskegee syphilis trials and the mistreatment of black people in scientific research at the time and how this may have bent the family's view of the situation