ogechi

bet it’s so easy.

bet your hair is straighter than a ruler.

bet you just wake up and walk out the house.

bet brushing your hair takes ten seconds.

bet you’ve never been pet because of it.

bet you enjoy dancing in the rain.

bet you get compliments on it.

bet your messy bun

is more professional than mine.

bet nobody asks

if it’s all yours.

bet you have about a thousand barbies

bet they look like you.

bet you’d never need

a protective style.

bet you’ve never been accused

of having horse hair

i bet that because of all this

you would never get box braids

Henrietta was discriminated during her life, specifically while she was a patient at Johns Hopkins Hospital. But that same discrimination followed her even into death, with the birth of the HeLa cells. Dr. George Gey, a researcher, slyly named them HeLa cells, in order to continue his work without the family knowing. Those initials were fairly common, so it was often mistaken for Helen Lane, Helen Larson, and lastly, Henrietta Lakes. In chapter 14, Roland H. Berg, a press officer at the NFIP wrote, “I am entirely sympathetic to your reasons for with-holding the name of the patient and thus prevent a possible invasion of privacy. However, I do believe that in the kind of article I am projecting there would be complete protection of the rights of all individuals.” Releasing Henrietta’s name wouldn’t have been an invasion of privacy. In fact, it would’ve connected her cells to her family, in turn changing their lives. Instead, discrimination followed the rest of her lineage. 

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In his article, Art Caplan, PH.D, maintains that,  “No family member ever said they expected money, but right in the middle of the meetings, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that naturally occurring genes could not be patented, making the issue of compensation much less important.” Yes, it’s true that they never expected money, but they never even got a chance, since they were so quickly belittled by the U.S. Supreme Court, and ultimately rejected from any form of compensation.

       Johns Hopkins was the only hospital around that treated people of color, yet their doctors still had preconceived notions about black patients. Henrietta Lacks had a low social and economic status as a black woman, which resulted in immoral treatment from her white doctors. Her doctors alienated her simply because of her gender, race, and class. They believed that she didn’t have the mental capacity to understand their decisions, so they chose not to inform her of them. Page 47 reads, “But things weren’t all good. Toward the end of her treatments, Henrietta asked her doctor when she’d be better so she could have another child. Until that moment, Henrietta didn’t know that the treatments had left her infertile.” They hadn’t even informed her prior to treatment about the possible adverse effects.

Secondary Source

According to Judith G. Edersheim, J.D., M.D. and Theodore A. Stern, M.D. at the National Center for Biotechnology Information, “Finally, the dereliction of duty must have directly caused “damages” or compensable harm to the patient. While some poor medical practices might directly cause minor discomfort or inconvenience to the patient, the law generally confines itself to compensating serious harms, whether physical or psychological in nature.” In simple terms, they are saying that the law will compensate serious harms, which would’ve been extremely beneficial in Henrietta’s case, where her skin was blackening as a result of her treatment, along with her infertility. 

       Nowadays, doctors have a code of ethics. There are certain standards they have to work by, to ensure patient safety and confidentiality. Henrietta Lacks didn’t receive the same type of treatment. Back then, the only hospital that would take her was The Johns Hopkins hospital, so she went there to complain of her vaginal bleeding. There, she met a doctor named Richard Wesley TeLinde , who specialized in the research of cervical cancer. According to page 29, “ Like many doctors of his era, 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.” Doctors were determined to do whatever was best for them, and whatever would get them the most money, as opposed to how doctors are now.

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Sexual abuse in families can negatively impact their relationship, along with the victims mental stability. According to the National Child Traumatic Stress Network, “When children are abused by adults who are supposed to protect them from harm, their ability to trust and rely on adults may be shattered. Knowing that the abuser is liked—or even loved—by other family members makes it all the more difficult for children to tell others about the abuse.” Deborah Lacks is a prime example of losing trust in people, which may be why it was such a struggle for Rebecca Skloot to get any information regarding her mother. https://www.nctsn.org/sites/default/files/resources//coping_with_intrafamilial_sexual_abuse_parents.pdf

Secondary Source

In an article by UChicago Medicine, a real-world example of racism in America, Natalia Neha Khosla says, “Bias today often operates subconsciously, so that people are not aware that they are acting in a biased way,” Americans today tend to believe that racism is a thing of the past, and that it’s history, yet we’re unaware of how it still affects our society today. Become aware of bias and the effect it has on our society is the first step to ending it altogether. https://www.uchicagomedicine.org/forefront/patient-care-articles/pritzker-medical-student-research-on-race-bias

softball