HeLa cells

I finally finished The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. I started it over the summer when it was named part of my university's "Go Big Read" program — it took me a while. I am not someone who has the time or the ability to sit down with a book for hours and plow my way through it. It's a chapter here, chapter there. If the book doesn't capture my attention early, then forget about it.

This book, however, is fascinating, even by my lowly standards. It is the story of the development of the HeLa cells that we all hear so much about in cancer — the first immortal human cell line. More than that, it is the story of the relatives of woman whose cancer produced those cells. They didn't know that these cell lines, taken from their loved one, were even in existence. The cells were taken without the patient's permission, so it is also a story of informed consent, racism, medical research and greed. It is even a political tale of universal health care when the children of Henrietta Lacks cannot afford health insurance and obtain the medical care they need for their diabetes, hypertension and so on. The author clearly knows her medical data — I only was able to find one small medical error.

The book does not water down the complexities of the issues at hand — not all researchers are awful, not everyone is in it for their personal good, and sometimes there is a societal benefit to be wrought from tissue acquisition, which may trump personal autonomy (I'm not sold on the last point, but the argument was soundly made). It is a breathtakingly well written work of a complex medical issue. I am not sure I will ever look at a cell line study the same again.