The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

· Sold by Crown
4.5
600 reviews
Ebook
400
Pages
Eligible

About this ebook

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “The story of modern medicine and bioethics—and, indeed, race relations—is refracted beautifully, and movingly.”—Entertainment Weekly

NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE FROM HBO® STARRING OPRAH WINFREY AND ROSE BYRNE • ONE OF THE “MOST INFLUENTIAL” (CNN), “DEFINING” (LITHUB), AND “BEST” (THE PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER) BOOKS OF THE DECADE • ONE OF ESSENCE’S 50 MOST IMPACTFUL BLACK BOOKS OF THE PAST 50 YEARS • WINNER OF THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE HEARTLAND PRIZE FOR NONFICTION

NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New York Times Book Review • Entertainment Weekly • O: The Oprah Magazine • NPR • Financial Times • New York • Independent (U.K.) • Times (U.K.) • Publishers Weekly • Library Journal • Kirkus Reviews • Booklist • Globe and Mail

Her name was Henrietta Lacks, but scientists know her as HeLa. She was a poor Southern tobacco farmer who worked the same land as her slave ancestors, yet her cells—taken without her knowledge—became one of the most important tools in medicine: The first “immortal” human cells grown in culture, which are still alive today, though she has been dead for more than sixty years. HeLa cells were vital for developing the polio vaccine; uncovered secrets of cancer, viruses, and the atom bomb’s effects; helped lead to important advances like in vitro fertilization, cloning, and gene mapping; and have been bought and sold by the billions. 

Yet Henrietta Lacks remains virtually unknown, buried in an unmarked grave.

Henrietta’s family did not learn of her “immortality” until more than twenty years after her death, when scientists investigating HeLa began using her husband and children in research without informed consent. And though the cells had launched a multimillion-dollar industry that sells human biological materials, her family never saw any of the profits. As Rebecca Skloot so brilliantly shows, the story of the Lacks family—past and present—is inextricably connected to the dark history of experimentation on African Americans, the birth of bioethics, and the legal battles over whether we control the stuff we are made of. 

Over the decade it took to uncover this story, Rebecca became enmeshed in the lives of the Lacks family—especially Henrietta’s daughter Deborah. Deborah was consumed with questions: Had scientists cloned her mother? Had they killed her to harvest her cells? And if her mother was so important to medicine, why couldn’t her children afford health insurance? 

Intimate in feeling, astonishing in scope, and impossible to put down, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks captures the beauty and drama of scientific discovery, as well as its human consequences.

Ratings and reviews

4.5
600 reviews
Khoreekage Uchiha
January 29, 2024
I read this book in my high school anatomy class and it completely changed my understanding of modern medicine, and the dark history behind the medical field. I'm so happy a book like this exists, and the woman who wrote it is an expert communicator who can clearly write a story for the average reader. I ALWAYS recommend this book to people who've never heard of HeLa or the woman we owe so much to. The least she deserves is the recognition, and her family has recently won a lawsuit. <3
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A Google user
July 3, 2017
Book Review :The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot tells a largely unknown story behind a well-known scientific innovation. In this text she tells three intertwined stories; the journey to uncover they mystery of Henrietta, the scientific impact of the immortal HeLa cells, and about the lives of Henrietta’s descendants. Sparked by a high school biology class Rebecca became infatuated with the woman whose cells have changed the world. She tells about the journey to find out Lacks’ story which led her to Turner Station outside of Baltimore, Clover, Virginia, and Johns Hopkins and many places in between and her interactions with Henrietta’s children, cousins and the people who knew her. She speaks about the family’s skepticism of another person attempting to profit off of their family as they have received no portion of the profits HeLa cells have brought. She eventually discovers that not much is known about the woman whose cells are so prominent in medical research and finds that her family has struggled with this woman’s story for years. Rebecca also tells of the turmoil’s the family has faced through this process and the struggles that many in the family still endure as they attempt to give Henrietta the recognition she deserves. Deborah, only two at the time of her mother’s death, opens up to Rebecca and talks about her fears and her belief that her mother feels everything done to her living cells across the globe. Rebecca helps Deborah and her younger brother Zakariyya to better understand the science behind these “immortal” cells, something nobody had ever taken the time to do. Rebecca also spends much of the book discussing how the cells have been used after being cultivated by Dr. George Gey at Johns Hopkins during Henrietta’s cancer treatment. She touches on the scientific developments from the immortal chicken heart to the many research efforts that they are used in today. The book also unleashes the moral issues that surround this story, the role of patient consent in research, the impact of race, economic status, and gender that has played a major role in how Henrietta’s family has been treated before and since her cells became famous. She also touches on the question of who should profit off of this women’s biological material. This text captivates the reader, evokes emotion on behalf of the Lacks family, makes the reader consider the morality of the medical field all while telling a women’s story who until this point no one cared to know. I read this book in hopes of incorporating the story into a science curriculum and have come away realizing that with all great discoveries and innovation there is a person behind them all. A living breathing person, with emotions, struggles and triumphs and that they are so much more than the innovation that we know them for today. After reading this text I have realized that often times the story behind the discovery or innovation is just as important as the discovery itself. I now know that HeLa cells matter but so too does Henrietta Lacks.
18 people found this review helpful
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Solo Flyer
February 21, 2017
Find out how this African American woman made a significant contribution to the world & medical science. HeLa.... This book explains how the U.S. Healthcare system took advantage of Blacks due to lack of knowledge. Doctors harvested Mrs. Lacks' cells, she suffered greatly and then perished and yet they created what is a billion industry today. Unfortunately, Mrs. Lacks family has not able to profit off of the cells harvested by doctors even towards then end of the book other doctors were still shamelessly trying harvest more cells from the family, And so many people wonder why Blacks in Amerikkka do not trust doctors.
26 people found this review helpful
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About the author

REBECCA SKLOOT is an award-winning science writer whose work has appeared in The New York Times Magazine; O, The Oprah Magazine; Discover; and many others. She is coeditor of The Best American Science Writing 2011 and has worked as a correspondent for NPR’s Radiolab and PBS’s Nova ScienceNOW. She was named one of five surprising leaders of 2010 by the Washington Post. Skloot's debut book, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, took more than a decade to research and write, and instantly became a New York Times bestseller. It was chosen as a best book of 2010 by more than sixty media outlets, including Entertainment Weekly, People, and the New York Times. It is being translated into more than twenty-five languages, adapted into a young reader edition, and being made into an HBO film produced by Oprah Winfrey and Alan Ball. Skloot is the founder and president of The Henrietta Lacks Foundation. She has a B.S. in biological sciences and an MFA in creative nonfiction. She has taught creative writing and science journalism at the University of Memphis, the University of Pittsburgh, and New York University. She lives in Chicago. For more information, visit her website at RebeccaSkloot.com, where you’ll find links to follow her on Twitter and Facebook. 

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