mentalfacts
Fact# 5857: Henrietta Lacks died in 1951. The tumor that killed her has been alive and growing to this day. The tumor is immortal and was used to progress the Polio vaccine and is the jumping point for most human cell research to this day. Scientists have grown some 20 tons of her cells.
ohfortheloveofcas
They forgot the part where they took the cells and grew them without her consent.
sonneillonv
They also forgot the part where to this day her family and still-living descendants have not received any compensation for the use of her stolen cells.
naamahdarling
They also also forgot the part where she was Black.
sorthvania
This is a book you need to read.
gaymilesedgeworth
As long as this is on my dash, I’d like to mention the Henrietta Lacks Foundation?
Henrietta was a poor black tobacco farmer whose cancer cells, taken without her knowledge, became one of the most important tools in medicine, with damaging consequences for her family who today can’t afford access to the health care advances their mother’s cells helped make possible. The Foundation strives to provide financial assistance to needy individuals who have made important contributions to scientific research without personally benefiting from those contributions, particularly those used in research without their knowledge or consent.
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The Foundation’s goal is to continue to help the Lacks family as well as others with similar needs who may qualify, such as family members and descendants of research subjects used in the famous Tuskegee Syphilis Studies, those injected with sexually transmitted diseases without their knowledge by the US Government, and others. To qualify for a grant in any of the eligible categories, an applicant must prove financial need and have made, or be the family member or descendant of someone who has made, a significant contribution to scientific research as a research subject without personal benefit, including those who have unwillingly or unknowingly been used in research or contributed biological materials for research.
