The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

Rebecca Skloot

Nonfiction | Biography | Adult | Published in 2010

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Chapters 21-22Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 2: “Death”

Chapter 21 Summary

Skloot finally gets a chance to meet Henrietta’s family in 2000: Henrietta’s husband, Day, and her two elder sons, Lawrence and Sonny, along with Lawrence’s wife, Bobbette. Deborah is absent, having had too many negative experiences with people wanting information about Henrietta. The family members are surprisingly friendly and immediately warm to Skloot, sensing that she is not trying to exploit them. However, they all express anger and frustration at the way the scientific community has treated them. No one has ever treated them respectfully or explained to them properly about their mother’s cells and what they have been used for. They are also angry that scientists have made millions from HeLa, while the Lacks family lives in poverty and cannot afford health insurance.

The family members also have many frightening stories to tell about black people being used for scientific research: “Back then they did things […] Especially to black folks. John Hopkins was known for experiment in on black folks. They’d snatch em off the street” (165). Skloot comments that “there were disturbing truths behind those stories,” but nonetheless explains that John Hopkins hospital was created for the purpose of providing free medical care to Baltimore’s poor, regardless of race.

Chapter 22 Summary

This chapter covers 1970-1973. In 1970, George Gey is diagnosed with cancer. Before his death, he instructs surgeons to take samples of his tumor, in the hope that his cells, “GeGe,” will become immortal, just like HeLa. He is furious when he wakes up and discovers that the surgeons were unable to take samples, and GeGe will never exist. Gey dies in November 1970, having spent his last few months volunteering for numerous cancer research experiments.

After Gey’s death, the name of Henrietta Lacks is publicized, first in an obscure science journal with a very small circulation, but later in Science, one of the most widely read science journals in the world. This article makes it very clear that other names, such as Helen Lane, were false, and Henrietta Lacks was the true identity of the source of HeLa.

Chapters 21-22 Analysis

Skloot’s portrait of Henrietta’s husband and sons is respectful and insightful. They immediately sense that Skloot is genuinely concerned about their side of the story and, for the first time in their lives, they have the opportunity to express their views and frustrations to a sympathetic and informed listener. Skloot also explains to them about the cells and how they have been used. This, too, is the first time they have been given clear information.

While the Lacks family members express their feelings about scientists and the disrespectful way they have been treated, the next chapter goes back to 1970 and the final few months of Gey’s life. His determination to create GeGe from his own tissue, in the hope that it will attain the same immortality as HeLa, suggests an egotistical personality with an obsessive concern for his own reputation, even after death. Gey’s fate is ironic, as the very disease he has devoted himself to researching is the one that takes his life.

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Before Gey dies, he gives his former assistant, Mary Kubicek, permission to release Henrietta’s name, but he does not appear to have any concern for the Lacks family. Similarly, while Mary herself does not tell anyone, the scientists and journalists who do make Henrietta’s identity public do not consider the potential effects on her family. Throughout the whole process, it has not occurred to anyone to inform the family before releasing Henrietta’s name. Again, the community’s treatment of Henrietta’s information (and, previously, her cells) questions the morality of the scientific community. While some doctors during this period, like the Jewish doctors in the prior section, find research without consent immoral, others, like Gey, seem unconcerned with morality or privacy.