Review: The Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks

In a previous post I mentioned how I'm sort of getting into ebooks for around of my reading. Well, I managed to larn my hands on a re-create of the ebook of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks as well as man child was that a doozy!

As I've mentioned previously, Goodreads has run an invaluable resources for me inwards my mass addiction. I literally pass hours on that site when I visit, perusing my friends' recent reading, checking upwardly on novel giveaways, editing my library... So of classify it makes feel that I would run to Goodreads for reviews of books I've simply finished. Note: I (almost) never read reviews earlier I read the books themselves. I honour it spoils my wishing to read the mass as well as I goal upwardly non enjoying it. I much prefer to read them after, when I've had a risk to digest the book's contents, as well as tin forcefulness out coherently articulate my thoughts.

I realize I'm starting amongst the goal here. Let's dorsum it upwardly a piddling bit.

Non-fiction is non my thing. I larn genuinely bored genuinely rapidly amongst books that simply aren't written well, as well as I've had a lot of problem amongst non-fiction because I honour a lot of the books I've chosen to read over the years simply weren't written well. They were written yesteryear someone who wanted to larn something off her chest, or yesteryear a historian who has no thought how dry out his prose genuinely is. But lastly twelvemonth (I believe anyway) I read an article on CNN almost this book, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks yesteryear Rebecca Skloot almost a adult woman whose cancer cells were taken from her during a biopsy, as well as receive got been growing as well as multiplying since, piece she died of her horrible disease, a rattling painful expiry as well as i from which her household unit of measurement never recovered. They're called the HeLa cells (pronounced HEE-lah), as well as they are responsible for the polio vaccine, many cancer treatments, advancements inwards HIV/AIDS research, as well as may other scientific advancements since their harvesting inwards the 1950s.

The work pose forth inwards the book: Henrietta Lacks' cells may live immortal, but she sure as shooting wasn't. And piece people were getting richer as well as richer off her miracle cells, her household unit of measurement was barely surviving inwards the squalor inwards which they lived. Most were uneducated yesteryear simple school, her children were all partly deaf because she had married her starting fourth dimension cousin, cousins were having sexual practice amongst each other, her fille was beingness molested yesteryear around other cousin, as well as the ignorance inwards which this household unit of measurement lived threatened to wipe them out. When scientists came knocking for their cells subsequently Henrietta died, the household unit of measurement had no thought what had genuinely happened to her. When they were finally told the advancements her cells had made possible, they believed that she was withal alive, that her cells had created a novel her. That when her cells flew into space, Henrietta had flown into space. That they had cloned Henrietta inwards London as well as that they would someday see as well as come across her there.

It was funny as well as distressing at the same time. Henrietta had done thence much for humanity without her knowledge, as well as yet her household unit of measurement couldn't fifty-fifty line itself upwardly yesteryear the bootstraps.

Rebecca Skloot had to exercise a lot of excavation as well as had to live persistent inwards fellowship to larn the household unit of measurement to utter to her. She mentions this a few times inwards the book, as well as that was something the reviewers on Goodreads brought upwardly when they wrote negatively almost it. One reviewer said,

Furthermore, I don't experience the admiration for the writer of this mass similar I intend many others do. She wanted to brand herself out to live dissimilar than all the residue of the people who wrote almost the adult woman behind the HeLa prison theatre cellphone work but I entirely saw the similarities. Yes, she has established a scholarship fund for the descendants of Henrietta Lacks but I got tired of hearing i time to a greater extent than as well as i time to a greater extent than how she financed her enquiry herself. I intend the exploitation is there, simply prettied upwardly a flake amongst a lot of self-congratulatory descriptions of how HARD she had to essay to utter to the household unit of measurement as well as how MANY times she called quest for interviews. At times I felt similar she badgered them worse than the unethical people who had come upwardly before.

I didn't larn that at all from the mass (considering she entirely mentioned twice how she was paying for the enquiry herself), but it shocked me to come across thence many other people maxim precisely the same thing. I read it differently (and said so). It made me distressing that people could thence seriously misconstrue an author's intent when it seems thence clear that the entirely motive behind this mass is to bring out the moral, ethical as well as legal obligations the doctors may or may non receive got had toward her family. Some people likewise defendant Skloot of bias inwards her reporting, since she became thence unopen amongst the family. I didn't come across that either, particularly inwards the afterword when she presents the questions inwards a rattling scientific as well as ethical way. She gives both sides, tells the law, explains the science, as well as thence gives the storey of the family. She is interjected into the storey entirely because without her presence the mass wouldn't brand sense. She is a necessary character, as well as perhaps her personal bias showed, but her journalistic bias was non compromised.

I invite yous to read the mass as well as create upwardly one's heed for yourself. I genuinely loved Skloot's storey of the Lacks household unit of measurement as well as ate it upwardly similar a giant slice of chocolate cake. It was a fantastic mass as well as I would beloved to know what yous all intend of it, whether yous concord or disagree amongst me, as well as what yous intend of the ethics involved inwards prison theatre cellphone as well as tissue donation.

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