Henrietta Lacks, with Deepest Respect and Gratitude

[JenyEliza]

To Ms. Henrietta Lacks (a poor black woman in her 30's at the time) and to her family, a heartfelt THANK YOU.

Although medical researchers involved in her case appear not to have asked for or received her permission to harvest tumor cells in order to carry out this lifesaving research, Ms. Lacks' and her family have MY family's deepest appreciation and gratitude for her momentous service to mankind.

In a microbiology lab at New York's Columbia University, Professor Vincent Racaniello experiments with some cells that have led to some of the greatest medical breakthroughs of the last hundred years. But these are no ordinary cells.

They're called, HeLa. And they were first used in research that led to the Polio vaccine, as well as helping to develop medicines to fight cancer, the flu and Parkinson's disease, and in the research that led to gene mapping and cloning. They were used to test the effects of atomic radiation and sent into outer space.

All of the HeLa cells, trillions upon trillions of them, originally came from one person-Henrietta Lacks, a poor 30-year-old black woman who died nearly 60 years ago.

"The list of things we can do because of that is just incredible," said Rebecca Skloot, who wrote the book, "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks."

Although it is shocking and offensive in the extreme today, back in the 50's it was standard practice to simply take the cells from another human's cancerous tumor without the patient's knowledge or permission and to use those cells for medical research.

They (doctors and researchers) didn't think anything of it. Cancerous tumors were just so much medical waste that was going to be incinerated anyway. By comparison to today's standard practice(s)~~where we obtain permission for literally everything, up to and including permission to use latex gloves vs non-latex gloves.

Ms. Lacks' harvested tumor cells and the consequential research resulted in saving the lives of untold hundreds of thousands of people all over the world. Even though medical science was unable to save Ms. Lacks, she left behind the ultimate legacy. Cures and vaccines for life threatening disease.

How amazing. Even though it was not planned on Ms. Lacks' part, I could only hope to leave behind such an important mark on mankind.

In 1951, Lacks went to Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore suffering from cervical cancer. Before she died, doctors took some of her tumor cells for research without ever telling her.

"They never asked permission to take the cells, which was standard at the time," Skloot said. "They just took them."

To read more on Ms. Lacks, go here: How One Woman's Cells Changed Medicine - ABC News

At any rate, thank you Ms. Lacks for your hugely important contribution to mankind