McKusick did not explain why he was having someone draw blood from Deborah. Instead he told her about Henrietta’s cells being used for the polio vaccine and genetic research; he said they’d gone up in early space missions and been used in atomic bomb testing. Deborah heard those things and imagined her mother on the moon and being blown up by bombs. She was terrified and couldn’t stop wondering if the parts of her mother they were using in research could actually feel the things scientists were doing to them.
