The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks in Crazy Challenge Connection

Oct 15, 2014 Lori rated it liked it

This is not a book I would normally read. It was recommended to me by multiple people. I loved it!!!!!!!!! I loved the science, family drama, legal issues and the race/poverty angle. Tremendous accomplishment. I had never heard of Henrietta Lacks or the enormity of contribution to science (even though she never agreed). Amazing.

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Nov 22, 2016 Justme rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

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Jan 13, 2017 Darlene rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: library, non-fiction, audio-1000, read-in-2017, audiobook, overdrive

This is non-fiction that is so unbelievable that it reads like fiction!

Henrietta Lacks' name has been on my radar for many years. I already knew that her cells were used to develop the polio vaccine, but I had no idea about all the other stuff that this book contained. Rebecca Skloot is one heck of an investigative journalist! She conducted more than 1,000 hours of interviews with members of Henrietta’s family and friends, as well as poring over legal documents, medical records, and diary entrie This is non-fiction that is so unbelievable that it reads like fiction!

Henrietta Lacks' name has been on my radar for many years. I already knew that her cells were used to develop the polio vaccine, but I had no idea about all the other stuff that this book contained. Rebecca Skloot is one heck of an investigative journalist! She conducted more than 1,000 hours of interviews with members of Henrietta’s family and friends, as well as poring over legal documents, medical records, and diary entries.

In the late 1940s, a tumor started growing inside of Henrietta Lacks. She could feel that it was there and knew exactly where it was located. She attended at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, but not until a couple years later when she had pain and bleeding. She was diagnosed with cervical cancer and underwent radiation treatment, but it was not effective. She died later that same year, in 1951. Most astounding is that the physician that was treating her routinely took cell and tissue samples from patients without their knowledge. There was no such thing as informed consent back then! The cells were named HeLa after the first two letters of Henrietta’s first and last names. What makes HeLa cells so unusual is their ability to continue to replicate. They can divide and grow with no limitation, providing an endless supply to researchers who want to study them and experiment with them. So, while the medical industry was selling her cells to anyone who asked for them, the Lacks family didn’t even realize that this was going on! They had no knowledge that her cells existed or that a sample had been taken.

Rebecca first became interested in HeLa cells when she heard a professor talk about them in a lecture that she attended when she was only 16 years old. She peppered her professor with questions about Henrietta, but he couldn’t answer them. He said that all anyone knew was that she was black. He suggested that she could do her own research and tell him about it for some extra credit. And so it began! She eventually made contact with Henrietta’s daughter, Deborah, and told her that she wanted to tell Henrietta’s story which is what led to this book.

I loved how Rebecca humanized the HeLa cells and educated us about the woman that they came from. Henrietta’s background is a tough one, having lost her mother at an early age and being sent to live with her grandfather where she shared a room with her first cousin, David. They eventually had children together and married. One child, daughter Elsie, was mentally challenged and was sent to an institution. Sadly, Rebecca also uncovers the experimentation that was conducted on Elsie.

This era was before my time, so I didn’t realize the extent to which racial segregation existed in those days. I didn’t know that “colored” folks had their own ward in the hospital, how even blood was labelled “colored” or not, and that African-Americans were subjected to medical experimentation (such as, the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment). This was a real eye-opener for me!

I love Rebecca’s passion, enthusiasm, and determination to bring this story to fruition. She did a commendable job, and I am not surprised that Oprah is producing and starring in this movie which will be aired on HBO later this year. I look forward to seeing it!

Cassandra Campbell and Bahni Turpin are both new-to-me narrators, and they were both top-notch! I thought the pair of them were both very well suited to the story.

This review was posted on my book blog:

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