The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks – Rebecca Skloot

2010, 345 pages.
When Rebecca Skloot was 16 years old, she heard about the HeLa cells for the first time. She took a biology class in a community college. Her instructor told the class about the sample of cells that were taken from a woman in the 50s, cancer cells, that became the first cells to grow in the laboratory. These cells were one of the most important things that happened to medicine in the last hundred years and were involved in countless researches, discoveries and drugs development. He gave the class her full name – Henrietta Lacks – and said she was a black woman.
When Rebecca felt curious and unsatisfied with the knowledge he gave about the woman whose cells are so important to medicine and science, she asked what else he knew about her, but he could not give her any more details.
This incident in the biology class started the process that ended up in this book. Rebecca Skloot worked for ten years on writing this book, combining seeking knowledge about the research involving the HeLa cells, and looking for the descendents of Henrietta and trying to convince them to cooperate with her and tell her what they know about her personal life.
The book combines these three subjects – the personal story of Henrietta until she died of cancer, and the story of her family afterwards; the scientific story about the cells that were taken from her, all the research and discoveries that were made using them, and a fascinating discussion about medicine and ethics, and ownership and royalties of body organs and tissues; and her own story trying to reach out to the family of Henrietta, and her relationship with them, especially with Henrietta’s daughter, Deborah.
The personal story of Henrietta unfolds a heart breaking story of poverty and hard work of a family who worked the same tobacco fields their ancestors worked as slaves, of kids who dropped out of school before they could finish elementary school to work and help the family, of hunger, of consistent discrimination by skin color in everything including medical treatment. It is hard to believe that these events happened in America not so long ago.
I enjoyed all the parts of the book, both the scientific part including lots of anecdotes about the history of cell science and other subjects discussed in the book. I was touched by the personal story of the family. Skloot tried to understand the means of each character in this sad story without making almost anyone the bad guy. Alongside some of the very sad parts of the story there is always someone who shows compassion and gives some hope. I liked the character of Deborah, Henrietta’s daughter, that had a very difficult life after her mother died, but always thought about how much her mother suffered instead of her own suffering, who didn’t give up on her brother who suffered maybe even more than her and made life very difficult for everyone around him. I was especially touched by her desperate need to know things she would never know about her mother, like if she was breastfeeding her when she was a baby.
This is not an easy read. I had to concentrate on the scientific parts, and the jumps between the scientific and personal parts didn’t help, but I am very glad I read this book, I learned a lot and it has lots of issues to think about.
A certain amount of the profit from the book goes to a fund for helping the Lackses get the education their parents and grandparents never had the chance to get. Contributions can be made directly to the fund http://henriettalacksfoundation.org/ .