Henrietta Lacks Blog #6
As the final post, I will be diving into a transition that forever changed the Lacks family. Discovering their mother, wife, family member’s cells were taken without their permission. Can you tell me what my mama’s cells really did?... I know they did something important, but nobody tells us nothing (Pg.162).” Even Henrietta’s children especially were kept out of the loop when it comes to their mother. In today’s day and age, the hospital could have gotten sued and the Lacks family could have had millions! However, this all happened in an era where African Americans were treated poorly. Her family doesn’t speak about a lot which makes it hard to talk about her. An example, Lawerence. He doesn’t like to talk about his mother. “We went in circles like this until he sighed and told me he didn’t remember his mother. In fact, he said, he didn’t remember most of his teen years (Pg.160-161).” Those memories were so raw and painful for him that he blocked them out. Like his brother Joe, I also believe Lawerence experienced many mental issues. Mental health was and still is a taboo to talk about in the African American community. We need to make getting help and talking about our feelings more normalized.
Secondary Source#6
https://injury.findlaw.com/medical-malpractice/medical-malpractice-overview.html
In the article, it gives the definition of malpractice, other terms about medical malpractice, and how you get help making a claim. Malpractice wasn’t really a term that was taken seriously until the 1960′s. Nine years after Henrietta died. My family continued to live poor and barely surviving while doctors were making probably millions of their family member’s cells that were taken ILLEGALLY! I feel the doctors should have taken responsibility and asking the family was it okay. Now, the family is allowed to sue if they wanted to. But, they couldn’t. They were poor and African American. No one was going to listen to them. They were just nobodies to society and hospitals.
