Alex Rudd
Social Problems 1020-042
Dr. Deidre Tyler
Book Report
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
Section I: The theme of this book is Henrietta Lacks. It tells two stories, that of whom Henrietta
was, and what her cells have done for humankind. The main purpose of the book is to explain
the whole story of Henrietta’s life, and the life of her cells. The questions the book answers are
who is Henrietta Lacks, what are HeLa cells, and also where did HeLa come from. HeLa is what
Henrietta’s cells are known as. The name comes from the first two letters of her first and last
name.
Section II: Chapter 1: This chapter starts the story off in 1949. Henrietta Lacks is going to John
Hopkins medical center to be checked out for a lump on her cervix and abnormal bleeding. She
is 28 years old, and has to go to John Hopkins because it offers free medical care to those who
can’t afford it. She gets tested for cancer.
Chapter 2: This chapter takes us back to Clover, Virginia. A tobacco farm owned by Tommy
Lacks, Henrietta’s grandfather. Henrietta was born Loretta Pleasant August 1, 1920. Nobody
knows why she changed her name. Her mother died in 1924 so she went to live with grandpa
Tommy. A cousin, David Lacks who is 5 years older also lives there. His name is Pronounced
Day. Henrietta and Day share a room and live together and as was common with cousins in that
place and time, they had children and were eventually married. Their first child, Lawrence, was
born in 1934. The second was Lucille Elsie in 1938. Henrietta and Day married in 1941. Also in
1941 they left Clover for Baltimore, Maryland so Day could work in a steel mill.
Chapter 3: Henrietta’s labs for cancer comes back positive so she stats radium treatment. Her
doctor, Richard TeLinde takes a tissue sample of the tumor on her cervix and sends it to Dr.
George Gey. Gey had made a deal with TeLinde to get tissue samples to work with in his lab.
Chapter 4: In Gey’s lab, he had been trying to get human cells to grow in a test tube. So far
none had ever survived more than a few days. But Henrietta’s cancer cells did. And they grew
fast. They would grow into as much space as they were given. Labeled HeLa, her cells were the
first to become considered immortal cells.
Chapter 5: Its 1951. By this time Day and Henrietta have had 3 more kids. David Jr. (called
Sonny), Deborah, and Joe (later known as Zakariyya). Henrietta starts radiation treatment.
Chapter 6: The author of the book, Rebecca Skloot, makes contact with a Dr. Roland Patillo who
was organizer of a HeLa conference. She explained that she wanted to write a book on
Henrietta and the story of HeLa. He grilled her a lot on her intentions as the family was very
sensitive about everything. He eventually gave her the phone number to Deborah.
Chapter 7: After the HeLa cells took off in Dr. Gey’s lab, he starts giving them to other doctors
and scientists to use for experiments and research.
Chapter 8: Henrietta is having all sorts of complications with her treatment but the doctors say
they can’t find anything wrong with her.
Chapter 9: Skloot travels to Baltimore where she is supposed to meet sonny, but he stands her
up. She goes to Henrietta’s old neighborhood looking for a plaque that was placed in a grocery
store in Henrietta’s honor. The owner of the store, Mrs. Speed shows her a documentary that
had been made by the BBC. Skloot hadn’t been able to get a copy before.
Chapter 10: Henrietta’s kids aren’t talking to Skloot, so she decides to travel to Clover to find
other relatives. She found a cousin, Cootie.
Chapter 11: 1951. Henrietta’s condition is worsening. The doctors discontinue her treatments.
She dies Oct 4, 1951. Gey asks for an autopsy and more tissue samples. Day later claims he did
not give permission for this. This becomes a huge part of the controversy not only in Henrietta’s
story, but countless others. At this time, medical consent was non-existent. In the same way
Gey was getting his tissue samples, so many other things were going on that patients did not
know about. And the John Hopkins hospital used the patients of the free services at their whim.
The autopsy on Henrietta revealed tumors all throughout her body.
Chapter 12: People didn’t seem to remember much about Henrietta’s funeral. Clover stood still
as the undertaker took her body through town. But most people remembered the storm that
came in. It was very destructive, some thought it was Henrietta.
Chapter 13: HeLa cells go into mass production and Gey figures out a way to ship them through
the mail. The NHID (National Health Informatics development) sets up a HeLa factory to
produce cells to help with a polio vaccine. A private company also starts to manufacture HeLa
cells. At this point Dr. Gey wishes he hadn’t given away the HeLa cells because it was now too
far spread to get back.
Chapter 14: Interest in where HeLa came from is rising. In 1953, the Minneapolis Star names
Helen Lane as the source. Gey and TeLinde argue on releasing HeLa’s real source identity. Dr.
Gey was interviewed by a magazine but he did not release the identity so it was still known as
Helen L.
Chapter 15: After Henrietta’s death, a couple named Ethel and Galen move into the house with
Day and the children. Ethel abuses and neglects them. People tend to think that is because she
hadn’t liked Henrietta so she took it out on the kids. Galen molested Deborah, and Day was
sleeping with Ethel. By this time the oldest son Lawrence was married, he and his wife Bobbette
took in the 3 youngest children. Elsie had been sent to a mental hospital when Henrietta
became too sick.
Chapter 16: Clover. Cootie couldn’t remember much about Henrietta because it had been too
long. He sent her to another cousin, Cliff. Cliff took her to the Lacks cemetery. There were many
unmarked graves including Henrietta’s. Cliff revealed that the whole Lacks family had
descended from two white brothers who’d had children with their slaves.
Chapter 17: This chapter talked about some more of the illegal and immoral things doctors did
to people without their consent or knowledge. A Dr. Southam decided to inject cancer patients
with a saline solution with HeLa cells to see what happened.
Chapter 18: Scientists send HeLa cells into space to see what happens to them, they grew even
faster. Scientists joke about how robust the HeLa cells are and what they could do to them.
Chapter 19: At age 16 Deborah has a child. In 1970, Joe kills a man. In prison he studies the
Qur’an and changes his name to Zakariyya. Deborah has a second child with the same man
Cheetah, and they marry. He beats her and she leaves him.
Chapter 20: In 1966 at a medical conference, a Dr. Gartner shocks everybody by saying that he
has discovered the HeLa cells have contaminated just about every other cell culture.
Chapter 21: Skloot finally meets Sonny. He takes her to meet Lawrence, and Day is there too.
They spoke of John Hopkins doing experiments on the poor black people and Bobbette,
Lawrence’s wife, even speaks of black people disappearing.
Chapter 22: 1970. Dr. Gey dies. Dr’s Howard Jones and Victor Mckusick write a tribute history to
him and in this, they reveal Henrietta as the source of HeLa.
Chapter 23: Bobbette learns of HeLa cells and soon scientists want to test the family to figure
out the HeLa genotype and then maybe they can figure out the contamination problem. The
family thought the blood draws were to check them for cancer like Henrietta had, not for
genes.
Chapter 24: The family begins to think that Dr. Gey and/or John Hopkins made million from
HeLa cells and they want it. The truth is Dr. Gey gave the cells away. It was and are the private
companies making the money.
Chapter 25: There is a man named John Moore. He has cells that are immortal also. A Dr. Gold
had been taking his tissue samples for years and developing a cell line with them. He finds out
and sues for legal right over his tissues and sues Dr. Gold for stealing his tissues. Judge Joseph
Wapner (famous for The People’s Court) presided over the case. Eventually the California
Supreme Court ruled against Moore saying that he left cells, making them like trash, which
anybody could then have.
Chapter 26: In 1985, Michael Gold publishes a book that has Henrietta’s detailed medical
records. The family still hadn’t received those records. The author nor Dr’s jones or McKusick
ever verified who gave up the records.
Chapter 27: The HPV virus is discovered or isolated or identified. It is found that this is what
caused Henrietta’s cancer. Normal cells cannot be immortal. Only cells that have been mutated
by a virus can be. Henrietta’s regular cells died, only her cancer cells live on. The HPV virus
mutated her cells in such a way that they could be immortal.
Chapter 28: 1996. The BBC is making the Henrietta Lacks documentary. Her family goes to the
Henrietta Lacks conference out on by Roland Patillo while the crew follows them around. This is
the first time any of them see any sort of recognition or celebrity of being Henrietta’s family. A
fake lawyer/doctor named Cofield comes in claiming he will help the family sue John Hopkins.
They trust him and he turns out to be a fraud. Deborah learns that she had an older sister and
that she’d been sent to the mental facility, Crownsville.
Chapter 29: Skloot and Deborah meet. Deborah is very untrusting after all the doctors and
scientists and Cofield. She agrees to the book though and starts to show Skloot what she has.
Chapter 30: Deborah takes Skloot to meet Zakariyya. He explains that he is so mean because he
had to fight even before he was born; he was fighting Henrietta’s cancer while he was in-utero.
Chapter 31: Skloot and Deborah continue their research. Deborah is still very paranoid that
Skloot is being paid by somebody to spy on them.
Chapter 32: 2001. Skloot, Deborah, and Zakariyya go to John Hopkins to see Henrietta’s cells.
Christoph Lengauer, a scientist shows them the cells. He agrees that Hopkins messed up with
the cells and agreed the family should get something out of it. This blows them away as no
other scientist or doctor had agreed previously.
Chapter 33: Skloot and Deborah go to Crownsville. Most of the records from the 1950’s had
been disposed of, except for a few volumes. Paul Lurz knew where they were. Elsie’s records
happened to still be there. She did not have very good life there, she only lived to around age
15. Crownsville had been doing experiments on patients like so many other institutions.
Chapter 34: Deborah finally lets Skloot see Henrietta’s medical records. Again, she accuses
Skloot of working for somebody and they fight but then work it out.
Chapter 35: Skloot and Deborah travel to Clover and meet with Henrietta’s sister Gladys. They
also visit Deborah’s cousin Gary. Gary performs a ritual where he took the burden of the cells
off Deborah and placed them on Skloot.
Chapter 36: This was mostly just a conversation between Deborah and Gary on religion and
heavenly bodies.
Chapter 37: Deborah decides to go back to school. She wants to learn some science so that she
understand better her mother’s cells and the things they have done. There is supposed to be a
Henrietta Lacks conference complete with Henrietta Lacks day, but it was scheduled for
Washington DC on September 11, 2001. It was cancelled due to the terrorist attacks and never
re-scheduled. Deborah has a stroke.
Chapter 38: Deborah recovers from the stroke, Skloot goes to church with her where her
husband, Pullum, makes her get up in front of the congregation to tell the whole story of the
family and HeLa. In January of 2009, Skloot goes back to Clover to find that it has essentially
been plowed under. Where downtown used to be is now just a post office and some debris in
the dirt. She picks up a few small pieces to give to Deborah. The book is finished and Skloot was
supposed to meet Deborah to read it to her. May 2009. Skloot can’t get a hold of Deborah so
she calls Sonny. He informs her that she had a heart attack and died just after mother’s day.
Section III: Critical analysis. I really enjoyed this book. I think the author, Skloot, did a great job
of mixing the family history with the cells’ history and the story of the family’s interaction with
the cells once they’d learned about them.
Section IV: This was a very informative book for me as I just didn’t know that much about cell
research. But it wasn’t to scientifically heavy to take away from the story. I found the jumping
around in time odd at first but after the first few chapters I understood why. This is such a
complicated story, plus the background information was important, the author did great. In the
prologue she explained how the family demanded the book had to be about Henrietta, the
cells, and the family. She nailed it. I think the main contribution to sociology would be
awareness of the importance of the HeLa cells to humankind and the awareness of medical and
scientific practices of the past, performing experiments on unknowing patients, and using
peoples’ tissues or bodies without their knowledge. I admit I was naïve to this; I had just never
heard of that or thought about that. I would be as angry as Henrietta’s family and John Moore.