In the book The Immortal life of Henrietta Lacks written by Rebecca Skloot, she explains that Henrietta was a remarkable individual who is an icon for science. Henrietta Lacks was a person whom everyone enjoyed to be around but she was covered with tumors that were cancerous. Henrietta Lacks was a woman with five children, a husband, living in Baltimore where she went to John Hopkins Hospital. Hopkins hospital was a facility where the blacks, people who could not afford health insurance could go and get treatment.
During Henrietta’s visit, her cells taken from her and made immortal without any consent from her or the family, and their name was HeLa. The mental illness patients taken to the Crownsville Hospital where Henrietta’s eldest daughter once were, for the illness of being deaf (aphasia- which means not being able to speak in technical terms).
In the articles Ugly Past of U. S Human Experiments Uncovered written by Mike Stobbe, Tragic Chapter of Crownsville State Hospitals Legacy written by Tom Marquardt, Special Correspondent, and Can People with Mental Illness Consent to Research? ritten by Charles Lidz, Ph. D. The components used will help explain the similarities between Henrietta Lacks and mental illness patients. The comparison between Henrietta Lacks and mental illness patients have many of the same qualities and unethical violations. Although there are many differences between cancer and mental illness, both patients of the black race went to hospitals of different kinds and observed. John Hopkins was a hospital for anyone where Hela cells were first made which changed the science world completely.
Hela cells were immortal cancerous cells, which helped, make the polio vaccine, and exposed a study of measles, mumps and many other things that would effects a person tremendously as described in Skloot’s book The Immortal life of Henrietta Lacks. The laboratories around the world had at least one vial of HeLa. The family of Henrietta Lacks knew nothing about her being the owner of the cells and received no compensation for what the cells did for the world. In the article “Tragic…
Crownsville State Hospital’s Legacy” it states that many observations were taken when new patients arrived but certain procedures that were taken are very crucial and painful as for example the pneumoencephalography procedure: was when they inserted a hole through your skull to drain fluid from the brain and put oxygen in the empty space. Elsie Lacks was one of the patients who the doctors diagnosed with epilepsy was given pneumoencephalography to supposedly stop or minimize the seizures. The patients of Crownsville State Hospital had no consent on being tested or researched upon during the admittance of the hospital.
Doctors also inserted metal probes into patients’ brains to reach the deep temporal nerves. Lurz says it was common for mentally ill patients to be used for testing after treatments or therapies that they have tried out on animals. (Marquardt 2)”. When no one knows what the loved one has gone through while being admitted to the hospital is the reason why someone needs to approve for the procedure that will be taking place. Both of situations would have been better if someone in the family would have approved of the procedures taken place and the tests and research done to the loved one.
The process of Hela cells and the draining of the fluid and replacing it with oxygen both need compensation if it injured the person and/or helped create something that would change the eye of the medical field. According to Skloot, many people that were inserted with many different illnesses and diseases for experimenting have been for the science. Mental patients and prisoners were the main target of being exposed for test according to Stobbe’s article Ugly Past us Human Experiments Uncovered.
Some mental patients had cancer and inserted with Hela cells to acknowledge if their immune systems were to fight it or not. In the book, Skloot wrote describes that some individuals that were healthy before later got sick for being testing experiments of all kinds. Henrietta Lacks was diagnosed with syphilis, which was inserted to some black prisoners and patients of hospitals. Syphilis is a kind of STD that is transmitted by sexual activity that she got from her husband. “… Tuskegee Institute decided to study how syphilis killed, from infection to death.
They recruited hundreds of African-American men with syphilis, then watched them die slow, painful, and preventable deaths, even after they realized penicillin could cure them (Skloot 50). ” The men knew nothing about syphilis or what it done to their body. In the article Ugly Past of U. S Human Experiments Uncovered also states, “In the 1946-48 study, American scientists infected prisoners and patients in a mental hospital in Guatemala with syphilis, apparently to test whether penicillin could prevent some sexually transmitted disease.
The study came up with no useful information and was hidden for decades (Stobbe 3). ” Many blacks did not have a good education so they were not for sure on what it was being inserted and/or how it would affect their daily lifestyle. Many people were test subjects for the various illnesses that would create new views on science and medical fields. When you say consent to a scientist many of them know that what they want to do is not going to be approved by the patients or the family unless life threatening.
Henrietta Lacks would have thought about the many things that was done to her cells as a blessing, but would have loved to been recognized for what it done for the world. Her family did not like the fact that she was not published as the rightful owner of the Hela cells when they were first brought to the public. After Henrietta died, she was autopsied and Day gave them permission after one of her cousins convinced him that it was going to hurt now and it would help the children.
Consent was the major key when you needed to anything with the medical procedures. According to the article, Can People with Mental Illness Consent to Researcher “However a close look shows that informed consent is based on some of our most cherished values and its use with people with mental illness is an important recognition of their inclusion in the broader community (Lidz 1). ” When there is no consent from anyone there could be anything done and anything taken from you that, you would never know it was gone.
As for example, when you have a serious problem as for patients with dementia consenting for themselves would need a close relative to consent for them. “Needless to say, there has been considerable discussion about whether, and under what circumstances, this applies to people with mental illness (Lidz 1)”. When you are making decision about people with mental illness you need to consider the way it would make them feel and how it would affect their daily life. With both of the situations mentioned you would rather have consent then not having any at all.
Having consent is what most patients need when dealing with researchers, scientists, and their inquiries. The mental illness patients and Henrietta Lacks have similar issues that happened to them, which both were treated with treatments that were unjust. When people get no compensations for what they have done for the medical field as far as Hela cells and the Syphilis study. In addition, many individuals were testing subjects for many people across the world for the various kinds of treatments and diseases that potentially left some of them deceased, weak, frail, and lifeless.
Although back then consent was not a law and was not that big as it is now, it was a necessity because of the many tragic stories it leaves behind. When you hear the name Henrietta Lacks and/or Hela cells think about a woman who had no consent for her cells to become immortal and never knew that they would make a great change like the one it did. The families of the individuals who was admitted to the hospital for the Negro Insane did not know what was going on behind the closed doors. If you are wondering more about Henrietta Lacks and/ or Hela cells the book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks is your answer.
