The Belmont Report identifies three core principles that are to be respected when using human subjects for research. The three ethical principles are: respect for persons, beneficence and justice. In the case of Henrietta Lacks each of these fundamental components are violated. The consent that Henrietta provided was not sufficient for the procedures that were conducted. At the time the tissue samples were collected from Henrietta Lacks she was an individual capable of deliberation about personal goals and of acting under the direction of such deliberation (Belmont Report, 1979). By collecting the samples without Henrietta’s sufficient consent she was denied of her freedom of choice. She was not given the opportunity for her decisions …show more content…
to be respected; in reality, she was not given a decision at all. The maximizing possible benefits and minimizing possible harms general rule of beneficence was not thoroughly considered when using Henrietta’s cells for research.
Dr. TeLinde and Dr. Gey were collecting samples for reasons that could potentially bring large benefit to society, but they did not consider how the individuals who provided the sample would directly benefit. In the case of Henrietta her tissue sample ultimately led to major medical advances, but due to the fact that when the sample was taken the researchers did not give forethought to the benefits and risks that might occur; therefore, Henrietta and her family were exposed to severe loss of privacy and did not receive any form of benefits from the widespread use of her cell line. The Belmont Report (1979) states how relevant risks and benefits must be thoroughly outlined in the documents used in the informed consent process. The research was not well designed in the assessment of risks and benefits component and did not consider this …show more content…
application. The ethical principle justice takes into considers who should receive the benefits of research and who should bear its burdens? (Belmont Report, 1979). Henrietta is carrying the burden of her cells being used for research because she is in the poor/colored ward of the hospital, while the benefits of improved medical care will be primarily received by private patients. The distribution of benefits and burdens in her case is unjust, and following Henrietta’s significant role in science she was barely acknowledged. In addition to the unifying ethical principles the Belmont Report discusses three primary areas of application are STATED. These requirements are: informed consent, risk/benefit analysis and the selection of subjects as research. Informed Consent: Adequate informed consent is devised from three components: information, comprehension and voluntariness. The information element is designed to ensure the patients are given sufficient information; including the research procedure, their purposes, risks and anticipated benefits, alternative procedures and a statement offering the subject the opportunity to ask questions and to withdrawal at any time from the research (Belmont Report, 1979). Another aspect included in the information section is the idea of “reasonable volunteer” which was a standard that was not offered to Henrietta. Being poor, black, under educated and a woman who is need of medical treatment are each a factor inhibiting her ability to agree to participate voluntarily. She signed her name on the Operation Permit form, but did not do this free of coercion and undue influence. The Belmont Report states that it is not appropriate to manipulate an individual into participating because of their socioeconomic condition or illness. The comprehension aspect of properly obtaining informed consent was not regarded in Henrietta’s case. As she entered John Hopkins Hospital for her first treatment she headed directly towards the admissions desk where she was provided with an Operation Permit form. Skloot (2010) states that the Operation Permit reads as follows: I hereby give consent to the staff of The John Hopkins Hospital to perform any operative procedures and under any anaesthetic either local or general that they may deem necessary in the proper surgical care and treatment of: ________________________. (p. 31) In the blank space following “treatment of:” Henrietta signed her name. This is a clear demonstration that she did not fully comprehend the information. Due to external pressures of being an under educated poor black woman who has just received a serious diagnosis did not feel free to ask questions enhancing her ability to make an informed choice. The admissions clerk, the individuals involved in her treatment and the researchers did not fulfill their duty in presenting the information to Henrietta’s capacity. The selection of subject aspect weaves in the ethical principle of justice.
According to the Belmont Report (1979), justice is relevant to the selection of subjects of research at two levels: the social and the individual. Skloot (2010) describes how “Gey took any cells he could get his hands on” and how “TeLinde began collecting samples from any woman who walked into Hopkins with cervical cancer” (p. 30). These two doctors did not exhibit fairness in their selection of subjects. Dr. TeLinde was collecting samples from women on the color ward and did not consider the appropriateness of placing further burdens on already burdened persons. The women whose tissue samples are being gathered for research are the women who will most likely be the last to benefit; because more advantaged populations (wealthy and white) will initially be the primary
recipients. Along with Henrietta not being in position to provide adequate consent using the Operation Permit form, the clearest example is provided when Skloot (2010) explains “that no one had told Henrietta that TeLinde was collecting samples or asked if she wanted to be a donor” (p. 33). This directly states that Henrietta did not provide sufficient consent for the procedures that were conducted. In the process of unknowingly becoming a subject in a research study she was not provided her right to withdraw if she chooses to. She was being used by the researchers as a means to an end. Philosopher Immanuel Kant discusses how it is wrong to treat others as a means to an end. He emphasizes how people are special due to their capacity for personhood. Individuals are rational and autonomous beings whose worth cannot be quantified. Skloot (2010) states, “that since patients were treated for free in the public wards, it was fair to use them as research subjects as a form of payment” portraying the common belief of many scientists during the time Henrietta was being treated at John Hopkins Hospital (p. 30). Henrietta was denied of her autonomy when she was no longer free to make her own decisions about her cells being used in research, and it is unjust to use an individual for research as a form of payment for receiving treatment for an illness. Another idea that is developed from Kant’s philosophy is the idea that it is always wrong to lie. People have a duty to tell the truth. When Dr. TeLinde neglected to gain adequate consent from Henrietta prior to removing the tissue samples from her he took away her ability to be educated and informed about her options. It is the duty of the doctors and researchers to provide the patient with complete information that is mutually understood before a procedure and this failed to happen. (New paragraph? As it – a very short paragraph if separated) Negative rights protect people from interference. The right to privacy imposes on individuals the duty not to intrude into the private activities of a person (Velasquez, et al., 1990, p. 2). When the samples were taken from Henrietta without sufficient consent her personal right to privacy was infringed on and the duty of the doctors was not reached. According to Ram (2009), when a person’s tissues are used for research without their knowledge and consent; they may suffer harm due to the fact they have been deprived of their right to be left alone. Alternatively, a person is not properly provided with the information significant to their decision whether or not to be involved in the research process; they suffer harm due to the fact they have been deprived of their autonomous right to choose. Research looking at public attitudes regarding consent to the research use of tissue has discovered that, most tissue providers are happy to grant broad consent for the future use of their tissues, but adequate consent must be obtained (Ram, 2009). In the case of Henrietta Lacks sufficient consent was not provided for the procedures that were conducted.
In this paper, I will analyze Rebecca Skloot’s book, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, concentrating on Henrietta Lacks’ life, as well as ethical controversies and sociological impact surrounding the HeLa cells. First, I will discuss the author’s main arguments and the type of evidence used throughout the paper. Then, I will summarize the life of Henrietta Lacks focusing on her diagnosis and treatment up to her death. After, I will describe the ethical debates that the author presented and how they relate to Henrietta Lacks and the HeLa cells. Finally, I will examine the impact HeLa cells have had on the society, specifically regarding the medical community, as well as the effect HeLa cells had on Henrietta’s family.
In the year 1951, Henrietta Lacks had her cells taken, for scientific research, without her knowledge. Henrietta Lacks was
The scientific community saw Henrietta as nothing but a test subject before and after her death. During her first cancer treatment, nurses lead Henrietta to the “colored ward” where, before performing the operation, surgeons “shaved two dime-sized pieces of tissue from [her] cervix,” without consent (33). From there, the scientists received those samples and “labeled each [test tube] … using the first two letters of the patient’s
All I can say is amazing information of your glorious and late Henrietta Lacks. This incedible women bettered our society in ways no common human could understand at the time because of how complex this matter was and still very much indeed is. I know there is much contraversy with the matter of how scientists achived immortal cells from your late relative, and I do strongly agree with the fact that it was wrong for these researches to take advantage of this incredible women, but I know it is not for me to say nonethless it must be said that even though it was wrong to take Lacks’ cells when she was dying sometimes one must suffer to bring joy to the entire world.
In the novel The Immoral Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot, the author tells the miraculous story of one woman’s amazing contribution to science. Henrietta Lacks unknowingly provides scientists with a biopsy capable of reproducing cells at a tremendusly fast pace. The story of Henrietta Lacks demonstrates how an individual’s rights can be effortlessly breached when it involves medical science and research. Although her cells have contributed to science in many miraculous ways, there is little known about the woman whose body they derived from. Skloot is a very gifted author whose essential writing technique divides the story into three parts so that she, Henrietta
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by: Rebecca Skloot has a lot of themes, but one that is most relevant in my opinion is the racial politics of medicine. Throughout the chapters, there were examples of how Henrietta, being African American, prevented her from receiving the same treatment as the white woman sitting right next to her in the waiting room. The story begins with Henrietta going to Johns Hopkins Hospital and asking a physician to check a “knot on her womb.” Skloot describes that Henrietta had been having pain around that area for about a year, and talked about it with her family, but did not do anything until the pains got intolerable. The doctor near her house had checked if she had syphilis, but it came back negative, and he recommended her to go to John Hopkins, a known university hospital that was the only hospital in the area that would treat African American patients during the era of Jim Crow. It was a long commute, but they had no choice. Patient records detail some of her prior history and provide readers with background knowledge: Henrietta was one of ten siblings, having six or seven years of schooling, five children of her own, and a past of declining medical treatments. The odd thing was that she did not follow up on upcoming clinic visits. The tests discovered a purple lump on the cervix about the size of a nickel. Dr. Howard Jones took a sample around the tissue and sent it to the laboratory.
....S. Public Health Service advanced medical technology, it came at a high cost. A high cost that resulted in many African-Americans dead and a breach of trust for medical professionals. In the notable experiments of Henrietta Lacks, The Tuskegee Syphilis Men, and The Pellagra Incident, medical professions in no way protected the lives of these individuals. In fact, they used the medical advances discovered as a result of the human experimentations as a shield to mask the unethical decisions. Medical professionals targeted the African-American population and used their ignorance as a means to advance medical technologies. This in no way upholds the ethics that medical professionals should display. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks vividly exhibits the how the United States Public Health Service used, abused, and ultimately destroyed the African-American community.
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks tells the story of Henrietta Lacks. In the early 1951 Henrietta discovered a hard lump on the left of the entrance of her cervix, after having unexpected vaginal bleeding. She visited the Johns Hopkins hospital in East Baltimore, which was the only hospital in their area where black patients were treated. The gynecologist, Howard Jones, indeed discovers a tumor on her cervix, which he takes a biopsy off to sent it to the lab for diagnosis. In February 1951 Henrietta was called by Dr. Jones to tell about the biopsy results: “Epidermoid carcinoma of the cervix, Stage I”, in other words, she was diagnosed with cervical cancer. Before her first radium treatment, surgeon dr. Wharton removed a sample of her cervix tumor and a sample of her healthy cervix tissue and gave this tissue to dr. George Gey, who had been trying to grow cells in his lab for years. In the meantime that Henrietta was recovering from her first treatment with radium, her cells were growing in George Gey’s lab. This all happened without the permission and the informing of Henrietta Lacks. The cells started growing in a unbelievable fast way, they doubled every 24 hours, Henrietta’s cells didn’t seem to stop growing. Henrietta’s cancer cell grew twenty times as fast as her normal healthy cells, which eventually also died a couple of days after they started growing. The first immortal human cells were grown, which was a big breakthrough in science. The HeLa cells were spread throughout the scientific world. They were used for major breakthroughs in science, for example the developing of the polio vaccine. The HeLa-cells caused a revolution in the scientific world, while Henrietta Lacks, who died Octob...
Without them, we would be decades behind because the average person would not find signing away a piece of their body acceptable. Skloot brings up a case where a man sues a scientist for doing research on his removed spleen without his consent. The author states that those in favor of research said it “…would ‘create chaos for reseachers’ and ‘[sound] the death kneel to the university physician-scientist’. They called it ‘a threat to the sharing of tissue for research purposes,’ and worried that patients would block the progress of science by holding out for excessive profits, even with cells that weren’t worth millions…” (203). The concern shown from the quote was that with extensive limitations on research and tight ethical codes, the information found would be inadequate at best. On one hand, you do need to be honest with the patient, but for the cost of so many lives, there needs to be a balance of creating breakthroughs and appeasing those who matter in the situation. In regards to Henrietta, she did sign a document to have any medical procedure done that was deemed necessary by her doctors. With that being said, she did unknowingly give away some of her rights as a
Although she was taken from the world too soon, Henrietta Lacks was a warm hearted woman, and though unbeknownst to her, she would pave the way for the medical field and greatly expand our understanding of one of the nation’s greatest killers; cancer. In 1951 people did not talk about cancer lightly; cancer was a very touchy subject, especially for those who knew they couldn’t receive treatment once they had been diagnosed. When Lacks went to the hospital because of a “knot on her womb” she never thought that it would grow into a full fledge tumor that would end up taking her life. Henrietta lived a simple yet happy life which consisted of working on the farm, loving her husband, and raising children, and she was not going to ruin the lifestyle she knew so well by telling her family that she had cancer; it was just unheard of.
The story about Henrietta Lacks is the evidence that the ethics of medical processes need to be improved. For a long time, many patients have been victims of malpractice. Sometimes, the doctors still can do anything without the agreement from patients. Any medical institution needs to hold the integrity on any consent form that is signed by a patient. To summarize, the story of Henrietta Lacks could be the way to improve the standardization and equality of medical institutions in the future.
The experiment lasted more than forty years and did not garner media attention until 1972, when it was finally made public by Jean Heller of the Associated Press to an outraged nation. The fact that a medical practitioner would knowingly violate an individual’s rights makes one question their bioethical practices. What gives doctors the right to make a human being a lab rat? When both of these case studies began in the earlier half of the 20th century, African Americans were still fighting for the most
Henrietta Lacks was born on August 18, 1920 in Roanoke, Virginia. She stayed with her grandfather who also took care of her other cousins, one in particular whose name is David (Day) Lacks. As Henrietta grew up, she lived with both her Grandpa Tommy and Day and worked on his farm. Considering how Henrietta and Day were together from their childhood, it was no surprise that they started having kids and soon enough got married. As the years continued, Henrietta noticed that she kept feeling like there was a lump in her womb/cervix and discovered that there was a lump in her cervix. Soon enough, Henrietta went to Johns Hopkins Medical Center to get this check and learned that she had cervical cancer. But here is where the problem arises, Henrietta gave full consent for her cancer treatment at Hopkins, but she never gave consent for the extraction and use of her cells. During her first treatment TeLinde, the doctor treating Henrietta, removed 2 sample tissues: one from her tumor and one from healthy cervical tissue, and then proceeded to treat Henrietta, all the while no one knowing that Hopkins had obtained tissue samples from Henrietta without her consent. These samples were later handed to ...
...ects of their study before presenting it to an IBR to be certain it does protect the particpants' rights of respect, beneficience, and justice. Research is an important component of medical advancement; but only if it is performed in an ethical way following all requirements and regulations.
What is privacy? Well, it’s the state or condition of being free from being observed or disturbed by other people. In terms of information, it is the right to have some control over how one’s own personal information is collected and used. This is a right that has been inherently protected by the U.S Constitution, agreed upon by the Supreme Court, and yet, issues around this very topic arise every day. In The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, the author Rebecca Skloot, addresses this issue in her story of the women behind the infamous HeLa cells. Her story shows that although privacy is a right that is inherently protected by the law, situations of injustice can still occur. Examples of this in the book include when Henrietta’s cells were given to Dr. Gey without any consent from Day, the situation in which Mr. Golde’s spleen was sold without his permission, as well as when the Lacks family were recontacted and mislead about the reasons they were tested years after Henrietta’s death.