The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

   This non-fiction book is the story of a black woman in Maryland, whose cells were taken (without her permission) while she was a patient at John Hopkins Hospital, suffering from cancer.  She died shortly after, in 1951. But her cells are a multi-million dollar business and continue to multiply to this day.  
   These cells have been used for research and advances in medicine.  Here is a partial list of the uses: polio vaccine, chemotherapy, gene mapping, in vitro fertilization, herpes, leukemia, hemophilia, Parkinson's disease, and the list goes on and on and on!
   But, her poor black family still live in poverty, unable to pay for health care.  They were completely unaware that their mother's cells had been used by science, and when they found out, they could not understand the complications of science.  No one took time to describe- in language that they could understand.  But many people were contacting them to get information and further 'testing' on the family.
  This author, Rebecca Skloot heard about this situation in 1999 and wondered about the person Henrietta Lacks.  She initiated contact with the extended family and was very respectful of the people who had been used and abused over the years.  She moved very carefully- in fact, it took her over ten years to finish writing this book.  In the process, she grew very close to the family and helped them understand and accept their mother's place in history.
  This book is 'chock-full' of detail!
  Not only is there description of the large Lacks family, but many, many doctors, nurses, medical researchers, lawyers, con men, and odds and ends of the general public thrown in.   
  The book is full of ethical issues: experimentation on African Americans over the years, the history of bio-ethics, battles over who owns our body parts.
   It did leave me exhausted!

  In closing, a note of appreciation to the author, Rebecca Skoot, who honoured the immortal life of Henrietta Lack.
  Oh, by the way, Oprah made a movie of this book and she starred in it as Henrietta's daughter.