Quick Summary
Not very many know what HeLa cells
are, and even fewer people know who they came from and what they've done for
the human race.
Born in Virginia, Henrietta Lacks was a poor, small-scale tobacco farmer who would change the world. This unknowing African-American mother of five was loved, admired, mistreated and taken advantage of. Henrietta Lacks was diagnosed with cervical cancer upon a gynecological visit to Hopkins Hospital, the only hospital that would take her because she was colored and lower-class. During her appointment, a sample of cervical tissue was taken from her tumor without her consent. This sample would grow in cultivation, like no other cells were able to do, and would spread across not only the U.S., but countries all over the world, thus complicating the lives of her children and grandchildren. Among them, Henrietta’s daughter, Debrorah, suffered the most while researching and exploring the beautifully dark truth behind HeLa.
Born in Virginia, Henrietta Lacks was a poor, small-scale tobacco farmer who would change the world. This unknowing African-American mother of five was loved, admired, mistreated and taken advantage of. Henrietta Lacks was diagnosed with cervical cancer upon a gynecological visit to Hopkins Hospital, the only hospital that would take her because she was colored and lower-class. During her appointment, a sample of cervical tissue was taken from her tumor without her consent. This sample would grow in cultivation, like no other cells were able to do, and would spread across not only the U.S., but countries all over the world, thus complicating the lives of her children and grandchildren. Among them, Henrietta’s daughter, Debrorah, suffered the most while researching and exploring the beautifully dark truth behind HeLa.