![]() ![]() In 1973, Bobbette met a researcher at the National Cancer Institute who was working with HeLa cells and had recently read one of the articles that identified Henrietta. (All of the Lacks children suffered from hearing loss, which Bobbette also attributed to Day and Henrietta’s relation.) Deborah had long been disturbed by what had happened to her sister: For much of her childhood, Deborah hadn’t even known of Elsie’s existence and when Day did tell her about Elsie, Deborah was afraid her sister, on account of her ignorance of sign language, had been abused and had no way to tell anyone. As Deborah grew, her male cousins did assault her, but she managed to fight them off.īobbette Lacks believed that Deborah’s sister Elsie’s disability might have had something to do with the fact that Day and Henrietta were first cousins. Bobbette also told Deborah to fight off her cousins if they ever tried to have sex with her and to wait until she was an adult before she had babies. In 1959, Lawrence moved in with his girlfriend, Bobbette Cooper, and she demanded that Lawrence’s siblings come live with them. Learn more about Bobbette Lacks and her perspective on Henrietta’s treatment. Bobbette took in Lawrence’s younger siblings who were living in an abusive home after their mother’s death. Who was Bobbette Cooper Lacks? How did the death of Henrietta Lacks affect Bobbette and her relationship with Lawrence? How did Bobbette Lacks help the younger Lackses?īobbette Lacks is the wife of Lawrence Lacks, son of the late Henrietta Lacks. ![]() ![]() Like this article? Sign up for a free trial here. Shortform has the world's best summaries of books you should be reading. In this livecast, organized in collaboration with the Association for Science Journalism and Communication Netherlands (VWN), we talk with Dutch science journalist/writer Job de Vrieze and Rebecca Skloot about the process of making The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks and how to apply narrative techniques in science writing.This article is an excerpt from the Shortform summary of "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks" by Rebecca Skloot. She is the founder and president of the Henrietta Lacks Foundation, which strives to provide financial assistance to needy individuals who have made important contributions to scientific research without their knowledge or consent. She has taught creative writing and science journalism at the University of Memphis, the University of Pittsburgh, and New York University. Rebecca Skloot has a BS in biological sciences and a MFA in creative nonfiction. It was at that time that organizations that utilize the HeLa cells made the first historic gifts to the Henrietta Lacks Foundation It was only in August 2020, the centennial celebration of Henrietta’s birth, when that began to change. The Immortal Life is also the story of Henrietta’s descendants, the Lacks family, some of whom were used in research without their consent and none of whom have ever benefited from the commercialization of HeLa cells, even though those cells have helped biotech companies make millions of dollars. Henrietta’s cells-harvested without her knowledge or consent-contributed to scientific advancements as varied as the polio vaccine, treatments for cancers and viruses, in-vitro fertilization, and the impact of space travel on human cells. In The Immortal Life, Skloot tells the story of a young Black woman who died of cervical cancer in 1951-and left behind an inexplicably immortal line of cells known as HeLa. Part detective story, part scientific odyssey, and part family saga, The Immortal Life raises haunting yet urgent questions about race, class, autonomy, and bioethics in America. Her phenomenal book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks has sold nearly 3 million copies to date. Most science journalists dream of a story, such as the story about Henrietta Lacks, that in 2017 was made into an Emmy Nominated HBO film starring Oprah Winfrey…īestselling author Rebecca Skloot spent more than ten years doggedly uncovering the truth about the life, death, and ultimate “immortality” of a poor Black tobacco farmer named Henrietta Lacks. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |