#6 The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

What a well written and interesting documentary-style book.   #6 is The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot.  Henrietta was a poor black woman ~ who married her cousin, {who gave her HPV & syphilis & who knows what else}, who lived in poverty & had 5 children, one who was committed to The Hospital for the Negro Insane.  A very hard life to be sure.  She died a very painful death from cervical cancer, but before she died, the scientists at Johns Hopkins Hospital took a sample of that tumor.  A cell sample that is still alive today.  An amazing concept, really.  Those cells have been used by researchers to find a vaccine for polio, cures for cancers, help map DNA, and much more that I really can't understand.  This is the story of the woman and her family and a human part of the debate of scientific ethics.  The most poignant commentary; here is a woman whose cells are a main part of so many medical miracles ~ yet her family can't afford health insurance.  Interesting, maddening, and often kooky.  I'm glad I read it.

Quotes:
p? {location 242} ~ "If you pretty up how people spoke and change the things they said, that's dishonest.  It's taking away their lives, their experiences, and their selves."  {a Lacks relative speaking about how Rebecca should write the interviews given by the family.}

p9 ~ Yeah, that's right, my mother name was Henrietta Lacks, she died in 1951, John Hopkins took her cells and them cells are still livin today, still multiplyin, still growing and spreadin if you don't keep em frozen.  Science calls her HeLa and she's all over the world in medical facilities, in all the computers and the Internet everywhere.

fl: There's a photo on my wall of a woman I've never met, its left corner torn and patched together with tape.  ll: "But maybe I'll come back as some HeLa cells like my mother, that way we can do good together out there in the world."  She paused and nodded again.  "I think I'd like that."