The Good, The Bad, And The Hela

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Recommended: Critical issues present in The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

later in the passage. In the article, “ The Good, the Bad, and the HeLa”, Alexandra del Carpio, who has a PhD in chemical engineering from the University of California states that this led to her cells “being the first immortal cell line cultured by scientists”, specifically a scientist named George Gey (“The Good, the Bad, and the HeLa”). Gey is the researcher at Johns Hopkins University who took the cell sample from Henrietta Lacks and is a world renowned scientist, famous for creating the first cells of HeLa. From his perspective, all that mattered were the cells. He didn’t focus on the woman behind them, or what injustice would happen to her and her family. As a researcher, his main goal was to find a cure for cancer.
The first discovery was made in 1952, in the developing field of virology. Virology is the study of viruses and how they behave. To develop the vaccines for the viruses, researchers infected the HeLa cells with many types of infections, such as measles, mumps, and the infamous poliomyelitis virus, also known as Polio. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), whose mission is to save lives and protect people’s health security, Polio is a "crippling and potentially deadly infectious disease caused by a virus that spreads from person to person invading the brain and spinal cord and causing paralysis" (Freeman). Jonas Salk, who was a virologist at the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis (NFIP), used inactivated viruses (virus particles grown in culture and then killed by a form of heat) to create a polio vaccine. Salk drew blood from about two million children, which the NFIP checked for immunization.Through the collection of many HeLa cells and trial and error, the polio vaccine wa...

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...d syndromes, such as Down and Turner Syndrome. Along with the discovery of having 46 chromosomes, scientists and researchers were able to map genes tracing back diseases. The production of the cells to test all these different diseases increased as more cell factories were built and cells could be shipped safely. This led to a multi-million industry, but also led to a loss of money along the way when HeLa cells infected many crucial experiments. HeLa led to many patient consent rules and regulations, including her family. These regulations included the government coming up with a commission and the Common Rule. Nowadays, when patients are given consent forms, every step is explicitly stated so that there is no such confusion or harm. All in all, Henrietta Lacks has contributed and made significant changes to the scientific, ethical, and political aspects of society.

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