Hel The First Immortal Human Cells

Henrietta Lacks was feeling sick 1952, she visited john Hopkins hospital for medical test. Doctors found out that she was suffering from cervical cancer. At that time a doctor name George Gey was working at the hospital, him and his colleagues were working in the lab trying to grow the first immortal human cell that could live outside the body and multiplies over time but they have been failing for years. While Henrietta was at the hospital some of her cells were taken without a consent and her tissue was going to change things when Mary, Gey assistant found out that Henrietta cell multiplied and she named it HeLa. The name HeLa comes from the first two initial of Henrietta Lacks first and last name. HeLa became a mass production around the world, getting shared by and with many researchers and scientist. HeLa has also been sold for a good amount of money but her family benefits none from it. The lacks family should receive money for the use of HeLa without the family consent.

Some might argue that the lacks family should not receive money because Henrietta had sign a consent form stated “ “ however the lacks family should receive monetary compensation because HeLa was sold all over the world. According to Rebecca Skoot in the book of the Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks, Henrietta cousin cootie stated " you know other countries be buying her for twenty five dollars, sometimes even more but her family gets none of it" (p81). When researches and scientist found out that HeLa multiplied they began sharing it with other scientist, because they was working on finding cures to treat patients that were suffering from polio. Scientist were also selling the cell, In Addition to that in the mid 50s polio became an epidemic around the world everyone were panicked about the disease, many scientist tried to find treatments to cure it but they failed until the NFIP gave a call to George Gey. The NFIP were making $50million and the director was ready to give half of that to scientist to find a way of producing mass of cells. When Gey tested the cell with polio-virus they found out that it works therefore the NFIP realized they had found what they 've been looking for, there were billions of cells …show more content…
In 1953 news magazines were working on naming the woman behind the HeLa cell. News magazines were giving credits to the wrong person, some would say her name was Henrietta lakes. Roland H. Berg, a press officer at the NFIP sent Gey a letter telling him that he was going to write an article for a public magazines, Gey replied " we have agreed to allow the material to be presented but the name must be hold onto" Gey did not release Henrietta real name because he did not want the news people to find out about the real woman behind the cell, therefore he kept her name a secret and gave a wrong name to the news. Gey knew where the cells came from, but he hide all the information 's about it. The family deserves money because of Gey gave false information about HeLa by hiding the real identity of the HeLa cells.