The History Of Henrietta Lacks

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Can your cells change medical history? If you are like me then “No” would be the assumed answer. For Henrietta Lacks that answer would come to be “yes.” Today, I would like to tell you about who Henrietta Lacks was, her diagnoses and later death, and what impact her cells had on modern science. I have read several articles and a book on her brief life while researching this speech. You might ask yourself why I should know this. The answer to that would be because your cells are important. Henrietta Lacks did not think she was anything other than a wife and a mother but later came to be known as medical breakthrough.

Henrietta Lacks, an African American woman, was born Loretta Pleasant on August 1, 1920. No one knows at this time why she changed her name to Henrietta later in life. She was born in Roanoke Virginia. Her family was extremely poor and life was not easy for the Lacks family. After, Henrietta’s mothers died while giving birth to her tenth child, the family then moved to a tobacco farm in Clover, Virginia. The children were then disbursed throughout the family and Henrietta was sent to live with her grandfather, Tommy Lacks, on the farm, who was caring at the time for her older cousin David Day Lacks. At the age of fourteen she gave birth to her first of five children by her first cousin David Lacks. Education at that time was not a priority for the Lacks family. Henrietta only had a six grade education. Now that we have some basic background on Henrietta Lacks, let’s take a look at her diagnosis and death.
According to Rebecca Skloot, author of, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, “For a few months she had felt like a knot was in her stomach and after the birth of her fifth child, it was found to be a lump on he...

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...tta Lacks in all medical findings.

In conclusion, the Henrietta Lacks cells have lived longer outside of her body than actually in it. Henrietta went from a small farm in Virginia with little education, to battling cervical cancer, and going on to change how we look at science in her short life. There are many areas of her life and legacy that I could have gone into today such as race discrimination, moral ethics, and patients’ rights but I have chosen to just give a overview on the facts surrounding her . Today, there is much acclaim for a woman who will never know the impact she had had on science. Her family is aware however and is working to make sure that the world knows about Henrietta Lacks. While her life may have been short her death may have changed the course of science. So again, can your cells change medical history? The answer now should be maybe.

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