What was your impression of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks? Did it provide insight into how confusing the medical system can be? Did reading...

Your insights into this book are your own, but there is no doubt that this well-written book sheds light on the confusing ethical issues involved in medical care and medical research. Henrietta Lacks, a working-class African American woman who died in 1951, never provided consent for her cells to be collected and used in research; however, white doctors and researchers harvested her cells and used them to grow HeLa, a line of cells that became...

Your insights into this book are your own, but there is no doubt that this well-written book sheds light on the confusing ethical issues involved in medical care and medical research. Henrietta Lacks, a working-class African American woman who died in 1951, never provided consent for her cells to be collected and used in research; however, white doctors and researchers harvested her cells and used them to grow HeLa, a line of cells that became vital to scientific research. As the author, Rebecca Skloot, notes in the afterword to her book, doctors can still store and use tissues and blood from patients without getting their informed consent (page 317). The question of who owns tissues is still debated. Should patients be required to give informed consent when their tissues are collected, and should they be entitled to share in the profits if their tissues result in money-making medicine or research? Skloot's book raises these questions.

The issue of race and the role it plays in medical care is also central to this book. Lacks was treated at a public clinic at Johns Hopkins, one of the only places that would treat African American patients in Baltimore. She and her husband had to travel almost 20 miles to reach Johns Hopkins, but, under the Jim Crow laws, they would have been turned away from white hospitals, even if the result would have been Lacks's death. There is no doubt that African American patients were treated as second-class citizens in the medical system. Henrietta's grown children later suffered from health problems and lack of proper medical care, even though their mother's cells were used to help countless others. The irony of this situation is not lost on the author or the reader.

The book Black Man in a White Coat by Damon Tweedy, M.D., also sheds lights on the racial disparities in the medical system. Written by an African American doctor, the book exposes the prejudices that cause the medical system to take the ailments and concerns of white patients more seriously than those of African American patients.