The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

About this Book

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks tells the story of Henrietta Lacks, a poor black tobacco farmer whose cells—taken without her knowledge in 1951—became one of the most important tools in medicine, vital for developing the polio vaccine, cloning, gene mapping, and more. Henrietta's cells, known as HeLa, have been bought and sold by the billions, yet she remains virtually unknown, and her family can't afford health insurance. This book is a riveting story of the collision between ethics, race, and medicine; of scientific discovery and faith healing; and of a daughter consumed with questions about the mother she never knew. It's a story inextricably connected to the dark history of experimentation on African Americans, the birth of bioethics, and the legal battles over whether we control the stuff we're made of.