In 1951, Henrietta Lacks was diagnosed with cervical cancer. Without asking or informing her, Henrietta's doctors at John Hopkins took tissue samples from her cervix and attempted to grow them and keep them alive. After she died, these cells, known as HeLa cells, became essential to scientific research, contributing to developments like vaccines and other medical advancements. However because of their race and socio-economic status, Henrietta Lacks and the rest of the Lacks family were exploited by doctors, researchers, and the media. Rebecca Skloot's book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks explores these issues, without taking advantage of them herself.
The doctors at John Hopkins, specifically Richard TeLinde and George Gey, exploited Henrietta by taking her cells, growing them, and giving them away without letting her give informed consent. From Immortal, exploitation by the doctors is explained as doctors doing unnecessary and invasive procedures on vulnerable patients, denying patients proper information, and/or denying patients the opportunity to give informed consent. From my understanding of informed consent from Immortal, this is when one understands the risks and benefits of what one is consenting to. It also includes understanding what one's tissues could be used for and understanding that one may not be entitled to compensation even if one's tissues help research something that results in monetary gain by another party. .
There are many reasons that Henrietta Lacks did not give informed consent. First, the form that Henrietta signed at John Hopkins gave permission for her doctors to "perform any operative procedures that they deem necessary in the proper surgical care and treatment of _________________, " (Skloot, Immortal, pg. 31). Henrietta's tissues were taken, but not for the purpose of treating her cancer (as it had already been diagnosed and she was about to begin radium treatments).
