- ISBN13: 9781400052172
- Condition: NEW
- Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
Her name was Henrietta Lacks, but scientists know how you HeLa. She was a poor peasant who worked on the Southern tobacco same area as their ancestors slaves, but taken into their cells without their knowledge, was one of the most important tools in medicine. The first cultivated “immortalized” human cells in culture, they are alive today, although they have been dead more than sixty years. If all HeLa cells grown on a scale could ever heap, they would weigh more than 50 million tons, as much as one hundred Empire State Building. HeLa cells were indispensable for the development of polio vaccine; uncovering the secrets of cancer, viruses, & the effects the atomic bomb, helped lead into major advances such as in vitro fertilization, cloning, & gene mapping & were bought & sold by the billions . But Henrietta Lacks is virtually unknown, buried in an unmarked grave. Now Rebecca skloot takes us with exceptional on a journey from the “colored” Ward of Johns Hopkins Hospital in the 1950s, too much white laboratory with freezers full of HeLa cells, from the small, Henrietta’s death hometown of Clover, Virginia a land of wooden slave quarters, faith healing & voodoo into East Baltimore today, where their children & grandchildren live & struggle with the legacy of their cells. Henrietta’s family did never learn from their “immortality” until more than twenty years after her death, when scientists began into study HeLa her husband & their children in research without consent. And although the cells a multimillion-dollar industry that human biological materials had begun selling her family never saw the profits. skloot as Rebecca so brilliantly portrays the history of the paint family past & currently is inseparable from the dark history of experimentation on African-Americans combined, is the birth of bioethics & the legal disputes over the control, whether we are the stuff we are made of. Over the ten years it took into discover this story, Rebecca was involved in the life of the family’s daughter Henrietta Lacks especially Deborah, which devastated into learn of their mother cells. She was consumed with the question, scientists had cloned her mother? Does it hurt her when researchers infected their cells with viruses & shot them into space? What happened into her sister, Elsie, who died in a psychiatric hospital at the age of fifteen years? And when their mother was so important for medicine, why could never afford their children’s health insurance? Intimate in feel amazing in scope, & into lay impossible catches, the immortal life of Henrietta Lacks the beauty & drama of scientific discovery, as well as its consequences for the people. Amazon Best Books of the Month, February 2010: From a single rose, abbreviated life of a seemingly immortal line of cells that have made some of the most important innovations in modern science possible. And for the same life, & those cells that Rebecca has skloot in the immortal life of Henrietta Lacks a fascinating & moving story of medicine & the family, the old-fashioned, as life is in laboratories & into sustainable memory. Henrietta Lacks was a mother of five children in Baltimore, a poor African-American migrants from the tobacco planter from Virginia, who died of a cruel aggressive cancer at the age of 30 years in 1951. A sample of her cancerous tissue, taken without their knowledge or consent, as was the custom then it turned out, one of the holy grail of mid-century biology: human cells could survive – even thrive – in the lab supply. Known as HeLa cells, gave scientists their impressive power of a building block for a number of breakthroughs, starting with the cure of polio. In the meantime, put Henrietta family live in poverty & often poor health, & their discovery of their ignorance decades later post – & their cells “strange survival – it was full of pride, anger & suspicion dogged. Skloot For a decade, but compassionately came together the threads of these stories slowly gaining the confidence of the family & helps them into learn the truth about Henrietta, & with their help, she tells a rich & vivid history, that the questions asks Who owns our bodies, & who carries our memories? – Tom Nissley Amazon Exclusive: Jad Abumrad The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks Jad Abumrad hosts & inventors, the public radio hit Radiolab, at present in its seventh season & reaches over a million people a month. Radiolab combines ultra-modern production with a philosophical approach into large ideas in science & beyond, & an inventive method of storytelling. Abumrad has won numerous awards including a National Headliner Award in Radio & an American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Science Journalism Award. Read his exclusive Amazon guest the review of the immortal life of Henrietta Lacks:
Only the simple facts are hard into believe: that died in 1951, a poor black woman named Henrietta Lacks cervical cancer, but parts of the tumor, that they – killed taken without their knowledge or consent – into live, first in a laboratory , then hundreds, then thousands, then started in huge factories churning polio vaccines, then on board the rocket ship into space. The cells from a tumor that would spawn a multi-billion dollar industry & become a basis of modern science – leads into breakthroughs in gene mapping, cloning & fertility & help into discover how viruses work & how cancer develops (including one million). All of this is into say, the science end of this story is enough into meet its mind blowing directly from one’s face. But what is truly remarkable skloot Rebecca’s book is that we will the rest of the story, the part have remained hidden easily, she was never ten years into dig it: Who was Henrietta Lacks could, how they lived & how they died? Hat knows her family that she would be immortalized in some way, & how that affect them? These are crucial questions because forget the science never the people that it the was life. And so unfolds, which is never only a reporting tour de force, but also a very entertaining account of Henrietta, their ancestors, their cells & the scientist, who grew up with. channels ultimately their discovery although youngest daughter Henrietta’s, Deborah, who never knew her mother, & who dreamed of one day a scientist. Since missing & Deborah skloot search for answers, we bounced effortlessly from the tiny tobacco-growing Virginia Weiler Henrietta’s childhood into today’s Baltimore, where Henrietta remains’s family. On the way, a series of memorable confrontations: Cell culture pushes faith healings, top medicine collides with the dark truth that Henrietta’s family can never afford into have helped the health insurance for illness care of their mother cells into heal. Rebecca skloot the story with great sensitivity, urgency & in the end, damn fine writing. I recommend this book. – Jad Abumrad Inside The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
Click on the thumbnails for larger images Henrietta Lacks Search & David, circa 1945th Elsie missing, Henrietta’s older daughter, about five years before they Crownsville State Hospital has been committed, with the diagnosis ” bullshit. Deborah Lacks at about four years. The door into door, where Henrietta was raised a four-room log house in Clover, Virginia, which once served as slave quarters. (1999) Main Street in downtown Clover, Virginia, where Henrietta raised , was circa 1930. Margaret Gey & Minnie, a lab technician who in Gey lab at Hopkins, circa 1951st Deborah with her children, Latonya & Alfred, & her second husband, James Pullum, in the middle of the 1980s. In 2001, Deborah developed a severe case of hives after learning disturbing new information about her mother & sister. Deborah & her cousin Gary was at the paint drying tobacco, 2001. The Lacks family in 2009. ;
Wow. This book should be required reading for scholars and students of life. The true story of Henrietta Lacks and her family has finally said, well, in this book. The book includes science, ethics and the history of a family that was terrible in the pursuit of scientific research done wrong. I could about this book pages for Gush but I will first try to hit the main points of why this book so remarkable in the form of a list for the sake of brevity:
1 The author clearly developed a strong relationship with the Lacks family, which was absolutely essential to ensure the story was correct and with respect to Henrietta Lacks said that so deeply deserves.
2 The storytelling is surprisingly touching, despite the need to convey a lot of scientific information. It reads like fiction.
3 Ms. skloot of research in the science is sound.
4 The book is beautiful. It shows the unvarnished truth, straight from as many people involved in prinicpal the story as it is humanly possible. It would have been easier to simplify the story of heroes vs. villains, but Ms. skloot cleverly takes care of all the pages of history.
For some detail: I with HeLa cells have worked in the past, but not even the most basic information about the story of Henrietta Lacks, until a few years. It simply was not known until a few people less ethical published their names and their medical records to the public. This should not of course without the express written permission of the Lacks family, the woman would have been received skloot. In the past, others have not been as ethical. The book covers Mrs. Lacks’ lives, as their cells were harvested, and what happened afterwards, both the cells and their families.
The contributions of HeLa cells for science not be overestimated absolutely amazing and can be specified. The sections in which science has been described were clear and precise. The story of Mrs. Lacks’ interwoven family, this book was pretty close to perfect. I found myself moved to tears several times because of the fate of the family and Henrietta Lacks’s daughter indomitable spirit. I do not think that anyone, but Mrs. skloot could have written this book. She worked with the family for over a decade the story to make it right. This was crucial because the family had done it too many times in the past injustice.
Thank you for this amazing work of art. I will donate in honor of Henrietta Lacks foundation of the whole family, and I hope many others will read the book and also moved.
Rating: 5.5
This is the hand of determining one of the best books I’ve read for years and I wish I could be more stars. It will be difficult to grasp exactly what makes this book so unusual and so fascinating, but I’ll give it my best.
First of all I would say I am stunned that this is the first book of the author. She has poured her heart ten years, soul, mind and life in general in this book. What has she been born in this long period of work is worthy of their sacrifice and honors Henrietta Lacks and her family.
For more reviews, the outlines of this amazing story. What I want to emphasize is that woman has the difficult terrain skloot lack of respect for women, and navigates her family, while still telling her story in a very intimate, thorough and objective manner. What do readers may not know is that the deficiencies family not only a “subject” is that the author researched. This is a real family with real heartache and real challenges, whose life she came in a very long season. The lack of “family has really benefited from the involvement of the author in her life and that is something I am very grateful for. I believe that Ms. skloot can Henrietta’s daughter, Deborah, a real sense of healing, liberation, peace and have the identity that they should be looking for her whole life… that the history alone, the book would have made for me.
It would be very easy to push for the author, as condescending or patronizing or possibly as exploitative than those about a family that is poor and uneducated. Instead the story is full of compassion and patience, infused as it takes not only the family together with her to understand on a journey into their current situation and the ancestors, whose life was so rich in heritage but poor in compensation, it educates the family in the process. I have the impression that the author really love Henrietta and her family grew. I am in awe of this commitment. < , br />
The author has succeeded in the complex scientific information in a way that everyone can understand and fascinated by his explanation. The author tells of the science alone, and the travel of the immortal cells Henrietta’s (HeLa) would read the book, have a worthy in itself. skloot wife Henrietta and pulled me from page one to the last page of the book. I read it in one pass and I did not want ‘to an end. br />
The author manages to tell several wonderful stories and each of these stories so well developed that one can not help but be consumed by the book. This is the story of Henrietta. It is the story of her sweet and determined daughter Deborah. It is the story of the extended Lacks family and its history. It is a story of race / poverty / ignorance, and people use these unfortunate trifecta. It is a story about science and ethics. It is a story should make each of us to think about it, have made to benefit the victims of individual human beings and animals that allows us so much of “modern” medicine. It is a story of hope and perseverance. It is a story of love and healing.
I can not imagine a single person I know would not love this book and profit from reading. I’m going to buy the last copy of the book and look forward to reading the book again.
I am counting the days til skloot woman writes a book and can not wait until one of their upcoming lectures. A fan is born!
Rating: 5.5
When I remember this book was categorized as CANCER, I think it would be more accurately described as a science based non-fiction. In the past two decades I have seen occasional news allusion to human cells taken from a black woman in the 1950s that have been reproduced millions of times. The cells are so-called HeLa and on the face of it I did not think it was have much of a story behind the production of these cells and their use by BioMed industry. However Dispell this book, rather naive assumption that complete and submit a name and a face, a family and a story behind the content of many of Petri dishes and glass slides. The immortal life of Henrietta Lacks explains how the cells were obtained, replicated, distributed and used without consent of the owner and family of John Hopkins and how it benefits humanity w / o compensation to the family. Skloot author tells the story of a family of socio-economic conditions and racism, can not get basic things like health insurance to the victims, while these cells to make a lot of money for the medical care establishment. It is a disturbing read that with the reader long after the book is finished will remain. It is also the reader a long, hard look at the need for standardized health care in our society, among many other things.
Rating: 5.5
Equal parts history, psychological drama to expose, and character study, Rebecca skloot’s haunting debut is a deeply affecting tour de force, which is easily the bridge between academia and the mainstream.
Your topic the complex drama behind one of the most important – and problematic in many ways – advances of modern medicine. Fascinated by the story of Henrietta Lacks, a poor African-American woman whose cervical cancer cells (HeLa called) were the first immortalized cells grown in culture and became ubiquitous in laboratories around the world, set out skloot to learn more about the person to learn their unsuspecting “donation” of the transformed cells in biomedical research in the last century. Her research spans a decade and eventually found her navigate (and to some extent, mediation) more than 50 years of anger over the white scientific establishment, the cavalier mistreatment and exploitation of the poor, especially African-Americans.
< , br /> skloot skillfully interweaves an account lacks the short life’s (she died at the age of 31) and agonizing death by an extremely aggressive form of cancer that is parallel to the story of their cells, and the sometimes bitter, sometimes amusing chronicle own skloot Interactions with the surviving paint (and initially hostile and uncooperative) family members. Moving easily back and forth in time, brings the richly textured story that results in sharp relief the human cost of scientific progress and the reader can deal with many unanswered questions about the ethics of scientific endeavor, past and present. While the objectives may be refined in biomedical research, as they were achieved, it is not always honest, particularly when commercialization of new technologies in the game. Skloot offers a clear-eyed perspective, highlighting the brutal irony of a family whose matriarch was a key figure in everything from the development of Jonas Salk polio vaccine for AIDS research on cancer drugs, but can not afford that much medical care their helped to facilitate parent cells, with predictable consequences.
The LA Times Book Review section called skloot one of the four “Faces to Watch in 2010″, an honor that on “The Life of Immortal Henrietta Lacks Basic “is well deserved.
Five stars – it was hard to put this compelling, admirable and eminently readable book.
Rating: 5.5
The only way id does not sound like I have this damn book with faint praise, tell me that this was an excellent story also (for the most part). I save the list for others. Needless to say, Henrietta Lacks’ story is as gripping as the science that was done to their cells. It will most likely enjoy its story (like me).
My criticism:
The author is a very significant proportion of the book describes her own efforts. It did not add to Henrietta history and leave it would be made for a better, more accurate story.
Black people were inhuman to say the least (, look at the Tuskeegee Syphilis Study, the treated sample). At the risk of being insensitive, it is also entering the ground and some of them could also for the sake of brevity, have been omitted without indicating the history of the impact.
Finally, there is an implied condemnation of the doctors say that their cells (the author, that this “common practice” was at the time) did not take place. I can tell you that a former cancer patient care has been several times when I remember once a doctor has removed some of your biopsy is gone. You will not pay to do this.
This criticism aside, this is a worthy read.
Rating: 5.3