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Welcome, welcome, welcome to another blog from "Open Mic!" I want to shift gears a little bit this week and hip you all to something you probably didn't know. Travel with me back to 1951 to the "colored" ward of John Hopkins Hospital where a young black woman 31 years of age died of cervical cancer. Who is this woman you may ask?....Henrietta Lacks. So why is this story important? HeLa cells which they are known as today were made possible due to the gift of science from Mrs. Lacks body. These cells are responsible for producing drugs for various diseases including parkinson's, lukemia, and the flu.
Cells were removed from her body in order for doctors and researchers to see if they would live indefinitely in order to do research on cancer. It turns out that these cells were practically immortal, however no one was aware that these cells had been taken, not even Mrs. Lacks. Dr. George Gey was responsible for mass producing the cells, but never made a profit. Yet these drugs are sold all over the world and have generated millions in profits. One has to question should patients, and Mrs. Lacks in this case have control or financial claims to tissue that is taken from their body?
Mrs. Lacks family never recieved a dime, nor were they aware that this had even occurred. They did not even know these cells existed until after 20 years that their mother had been dead! I personally believe that this was a social injustice to not inform a patient of what you were doing or intending on doing with their body. I believe corrective action was called for in this case, and cases such as these have drawn high interest from activists!
I believe that in order to be fair and legal, a lawyer should be present at the time a doctor is explaining that tissue or organs are being removed from a patient's body and what they're going to be used for. This would ensure that before the patient signed anything they would have full control as to what their bodies were being used for. We owe it to ourselves to protect ourselves, because unfortunately the world is somewhat made up of those who are only looking out for themselves...-Freestyle
