The first time I heard about this book was in Time magazine’s book review and I immediately added it to my wishlist. It was also the first time I’ve ever heard of HeLa, that turned out to be one of the most famous words in research history. It’s the name of a cell line scientists have been reproducing since the 50s in order to develop and test treatments. It was used to discover the polio vaccine, it went up in the first space flight and even today it’s still one of the most used tools in labs around the world.
HeLa wasn’t spontaneously produced, it came from Henrietta Lacks, an un-sung heroine of science. She was a black tobacco farmer from whom in 1951 a doctor removed, without her knowledge or consent, a piece of her cervical cancer, which late became know as HeLa. She died shortly after leaving behind 5 children and over time her name was almost forgotten by the scientific community. In the early 90s, author Barbara Skoots became curious about the origin of the HeLa cells she was using regularly during her biological science studies and decided to write a book about them.
The Immortal Life… intertwines two stories. One follows the 10 years research Skoots did on Henrietta and her descendents and the other is about HeLa, the history of cell research and the ethical questions it raised.
Despite the emotional power of the fist storyline (and I’m always a sucker for the “human interest”, one of the reasons why I was curious about this book in the first place), it was the scientific bit that unexpectedly hooked me. Skoots’ outline of the history of cell research is written in a compelling way, even (or especially?) for laymen. Her insights on the past and present of informed consent, patients’ rights and donation of human matter for scientific and commercial purposes, were the highlight of the book for me.
Doctors in the States (have to look into the situation in Europe) don’t need patients consent to store and use human tissue discarded is surgeries. Once it’s out of your body, be it your placenta or appendix, you no longer have rights over it, even if researchers use it for profit. Many scientist fear the need for consent would only fuel endless legal battles and they are probably right, but shouldn’t donors also have their say? At least, and as many organisations demand, shouldn’t we be able to ethically object to certain types of research being done on our cells, such as bio-weapons? Interesting questions, interesting book. It seems Oprah also thought so, because she’s producing an adaptation for HBO.
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June 23, 2011 at 8:12 pm
Esther Gendel
I loved this book. To think as a Science major I never heard of these cells although I
worked with petri dishes and cultured vireses etc. I just finished reading NEMISES by
Philip Roth about the Polio epidemic in New Jersey, no mention of testing.
Thanks for your incisive review.
November 22, 2011 at 4:52 pm
The Ghost Map: The Story of London’s Most Terrifying Epidemic – and How it Changed Science, Cities and the Modern World by Steven Johnson « The Sleepless Reader
[…] analyze society and science through the history of one particular thing, like the HeLa cells in The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, honeybees in The Hive: The Story of the Honeybee and Us or cancer in The Emperor of All Maladies. […]
March 6, 2012 at 9:35 pm
Sam (Tiny Library)
Thanks for reminding me that I need to read this, I have it waiting it for me on my kindle.
Also, I see you are reading Jamrach’s Menagerie….how are you finding it? I LOVE that book.
March 7, 2012 at 12:02 am
Aarti
I read this book some time ago and was more engaged by the science than the family story as well. I think that is because I was so disturbed by the family situation and that basically, most of the men in the family just wanted to make money off Henrietta’s cells.
May 29, 2012 at 8:23 pm
The Emperor of All Maladies by The Emperor of All Maladies « The Sleepless Reader
[…] A little aside to say that as A Reader I loved all the literary metaphors and references used throughout the book: Alice in Wonderland, Calvino’s Invisible Cities, Anna Karenina (“Normal cells are identically normal; malignant cells become unhappily malignant in unique ways.“), Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s Cancer Ward, etc. I was also strangely excited by getting his reference to HeLa cells, which I got to know through the wonderful The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. […]