BIO160 Critical Thinking Essay - Henrietta Lacks and HeLa Cells

Participants often felt that the quality of health care services they received stemmed from misperceptions and stereotypes, not the reality of who they are. They said they often feel that health care providers treat them differently and assume they are less educated, poor, or deserving of less respect because of their race or culture. These people receive lower quality health care services due to many reasons some major reasons are: language difference, economic status and racial difference. According to breast cancer statics 2022, Black women have the lowest 5-year relative survival of any racial/ethnic group for every molecular subtype and stage of disease (except stage I). When these individuals attend a healthcare facility, they are treated improperly since it is assumed that they are less educated and have no insurance at all. There are racial and gender disparities in the use of and outcomes following the implantation of a left ventricular assist device among Medicare beneficiaries, according to a new cohort research. Black beneficiaries were 3.0% less likely to obtain an LVAD than White beneficiaries in this cohort analysis of 12 310 Medicare seniors with heart failure who were at risk of needing one, and female beneficiaries were 7.9% less likely to receive LVAD therapy than male patients. After correcting for individual poverty and community-level socioeconomic determinants of health, one-year survival rates across groups were comparable.

The HeLa cell line, the first immortalized human cell line, was created from the cancer cells of an African-American lady named Henrietta Lacks. At the age of 31, she received a cervical cancer diagnosis. Without her consent, her tumor cells were isolated and cultivated in vitro. In the world of medicine, HeLa cells have been crucial in the study of tumors. They were utilized to create large quantities of the polio vaccine, see human chromosomes, and cultivate new cell lines. One of its most recent uses was in the development of COVID-19 vaccines. (doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-020-02494-z, 3 September 2020)

The existence of the line was not disclosed to the Lacks family until 1975. Only a few of hospitals offered medical care to Black people, including the one where her cells were gathered. No money was given to her family by any of the biotechnology or other businesses that benefited from her cells. Even decades after Lacks was away, medical professionals continued to release personal information about her without getting permission from her family, including her identity, medical data, and even the genome of her cells. Following the shocking events of 2020 and the #BlackLivesMatter campaign for racial justice, some have asked for a decrease in the usage of HeLa cells in research or even a complete ban on their use. But many members of the Lacks family do not want that. Numerous Henrietta Lacks' relatives are launching a new initiative called #HELA100 in her centenary year that encourages people to honor her life and legacy.

We all love to laud science, and I can’t help but be thrilled by fresh, ground-breaking discoveries, life-saving treatments, and numerous other human accomplishments. Contrary to the magnificent visions we portrayed, the path to scientific progress occasionally turns convoluted. Consider the instance of the immortal Heal Cells. The HeLa cells have a remarkable record in the medical world, but they also have distressing histories of medical abuse, racial prejudice, and other moral dilemmas in the scientific and medical fields.

Refrences

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-020-02494-z. (3 September 2020). Henrietta Lacks: science must right a historical wrong. Nature, 7.