This is How 'The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks' Breaks Her Silence |Book review|
| It was made to express in a way that could make a reader understand what is missing that others don’t know. |
I got my first polio drop when I was an oblivious two-year-old kid. I and my elder brother visited a small health center at a public school near my home with our mother. The noon was blazing that day. The summer was excruciating in 1995. The heat sheathed our sticky bodies. But the work had to be done. It was necessary for all children in the neighborhood to get their polio drops. I wasn’t exactly aware why we kids had to take funny looking (daunting for my brother) drops and vaccines.
What was this disease? — my mind questioned after watching some skits endorse polio campaign on Doordarshan channel — which used to be the only famous channel telecast nationally in India. Later on, as I grew up, I learnt about the importance of vaccines. The various diseases that attacked early on and how important it was to shield our immune system. I said to myself, “Fine, I understand. But how did they come up?” Well, why am I telling you this? Because this book — a tribute penned to credit an African – American woman, whose cells were grown in a lab to combat diseases and develop cures for the world but her name was clipped anonymous, made me reminisce what I was unaware of.
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Title: The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks Genre: Memoir Author: Rebecca Skloot Publisher: Picador Classic - Pan Macmillan Publication date: March 7, 2019 Where you can buy? Click here |
Rebecca Skloot, the author of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks has put her heart in resurrecting the neglected soul, Henrietta Lacks. A poor black tabacco farmer, born in Roanoke but raised in Clover, Virginia who because of her, breakthrough of immanent scientific discoveries were possible — one such was cause and prevention of cancer. The cures to diseases like polio, human papillomavirus (HPV), human immunodeficiency virus and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS), tuberculosis, leukemia, ebola, as such happened because of her cells. Rebecca’s tell-all book gives insight about the thirty-one-year-old mother of five, whose cells revolutionized the medicine field but wasn’t honoured the way she rightfully was supposed to be recognized globally until in 1973.
The scientists knew Henrietta as HeLa. She was given the pseudonym when her cells were taken for deeper study in order to prove two types of cervical carcinoma —carcinoma in situ and invasive carcinoma, behaved similarly, as agreed by gynecologist, Richard Wesley TeLinde and cell biologist, George Otto Gey (pronounced as Guy)— without her knowledge.
It started with her biopsy when she was undergoing radiation treatment for cervical cancer at John Hopkins hospital in Baltimore. During her treatment, TeLinde was nonchalantly collecting her tissue samples and transferring the cells to Gey for their research benefit. George Gey was obsessed in finding the cause and right cure to cancer. Most of the cells he harvested died in a short span. When Henrietta’s cells began showing unusual behaviour, living longer than anything he had witnessed, Gey became unflinchingly involved in studying and growing her cells. Henrietta wasn’t aware what was going on behind her back. She wasn’t voluntarily involved in participating his study. Much to the cancerous cells that were enormously spreading inside her. Unfortunately, her battle painfully ended on October 4th, 1951. Soon after her death, her family was asked for consent for autopsy, particularly, without letting them know the groundbreaking motive of shaving the remaining cells off her “baseball-sized” tumors around her organs. Henrietta’s husband, David Lacks, disapproved. When the love of his life is no more, he wanted to mourn her with the rest of his family. But the staff of John Hopkins hospital insisted that running tests on Henrietta might help his children “someday”. Reluctantly, David agreed after his cousin made him in permitting them. George Gey’s assistant, Mary Kubicek, took the rest of tissue samples from Henrietta before her body was released from the “coloured freezer”. Gey’s erudite in his profession was already widely acknowledged. But after attaining Henrietta’s cells, he became most famous for growing HeLa cells in his lab — leaving Henrietta’s family unbeknownst in what scale he was supplying the active cells around the world, hiding the fact from whom he was doing so.
The narration is clean. The flow is smooth in simple words. The dialogues are rested unedited and unapologetically honest, keeping exactly what each individual has said. Any common folk can read. They necessarily do not have to be a science prodigy. The non-fiction is exceedingly and thoroughly documented not just about Henrietta but her family’s hard time coping after her death. Rebecca has very well attuned her research on Henrietta’s exciting young life, struggling childhood, warm motherhood and her condition during her battle with cervical cancer through her friends and family. Here’s a quote from the book that reads,
“ The skin from Henrietta’s breasts to her pelvis was charred a deep black from the radiation. The rest of her body was its natural shade — more the colour of fawn than coal.”
Precise explanation about what cells are and how they work, archives about research on cell culture, doctors & scientists involved in using Henrietta’s cells, the history of how public reacted to the discovery and to the woman associated who was speculated by various names are lucidly captured. There are timelines mentioned in each chapter which profoundly connects when the events have happened.
This phenomenal biography hooked me till the very last page. I couldn’t stop reading. I wanted to know more about Henrietta, the life of her family after her death, the debate of discrepancy of doctor-patient consent policy, the way the patients of colour were treated and learn about rapid multiplication, process & storage of contamination of her cells which even made to outer space! Each page spoke to me like it wasn’t just written. It was made to express in a way that could make a reader understand what is missing that others don’t know. The pictures are one to marvel at. The images are something to stare as if I was living in the moment. After reading, I felt sympathizing Henrietta’s life, her family, their difficult childhoods and distressing situations which strikingly posed loudly. I shuddered at the thought how real this is. It isn’t a fiction. It is what has actually happened. It is how they have lived. Although this book was published in 2010, it is still apparent how imperative it is for all of us to know the harsh reality. Moreover, the issues pointing out towards controversial research ethics which highly raises in questioning the monopoly practice of status and position on innocent people — consciously and subconsciously.
I believe Henrietta still remains understated. Her cells that contributed toward cell culture should more widely assimilate. I didn’t even know who Henrietta Lacks was until Rebecca’s book was recommended to me on Amazon’s online shopping page in 2020. I wasn’t told how Henrietta’s cells changed medical research in cancer and other diseases until I read this book. Even a brief fact was missing from my general education. She was hidden for so long and in a way, continues to be on the side pavement. Rebecca Skloot’s The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks is not just a biography. It’s a poignant journal of a relentless woman and the author’s courage to right the history which is extraordinarily written with a wielding voice more than how science honours her.
Priyanka Patra is a self-published writer of Upon Me. She lives in Odisha, India with her family in a small town. She has done her MBA in Marketing & HR from Birla Global University in Bhubaneswar, Odisha. She is aiming to write more books especially in fiction genre.
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