Henrietta Lacks Is Unique in Medical History. Essay

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Henrietta Lacks is unique in medical history. By chance, her cancer cells held special medical significance, which doctors and scientists discovered after harvesting the tissue post-mortem. The event occurred 50 years ago and the family of Henrietta was not told that her cells were taken. This decision is perfectly in line with medical ethics of the time, though it sits uncomfortably with our modern sensibilities. But ethics do change over time -- they are directly related to values held by the larger culture. In the 1950s, medical experimentation of this caliber was new, and it did not even cross the researchers' minds to inform the family.

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As Grady mentions in her article, there were other issues involved, including differences in race, class and education between the family and the researchers. Lacks was poor and black and the researchers were rich and white. The doctors probably felt that the family would not understand the complexity of the science involved and would not be in a position to object regardless. Should the doctors have made a different decision? No, not at the time in which they lived and the information they had at the time.

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