A lot of gestures made don’t come close to righting wrongs. But efforts count for something. The statue of Henrietta Lacks in her hometown of Roanoke, Va., is one of them.
The Lacks statue, to be unveiled in Fall 2023, replaces a monument to Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee. A poor Black mother of five children, Lacks unknowingly made extraordinary contributions to medicine and science. Lacks’ legacy is in sharp contrast to Lee’s, and it was beyond time to knock down a racist Confederate symbol – however historic – and replace it with one commemorating a person like Lacks.
If Lacks’ story is unfamiliar, chances are you’ve still encountered her legacy cell line – indirectly or otherwise – in vaccines, including COVID-19, or medical treatments.
A brief history. In 1951, Lacks received treatment for cervical cancer at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. Tissue from her cancer was removed and sent to another lab without her consent. Her cells turned out to have a remarkable capacity to survive and reproduce. They were – and we don’t say this lightly – immortal.
The researcher shared Lacks’ cells widely and they became a workhorse of biological research. The HeLa cells, after Lacks’ first and last names, are used to study toxins, drugs, hormones and viruses on the growth of cancer cells without experimenting on humans. They have been used to test radiation and poisons, the human genome, how viruses work, and played a critical role in the development of the polio and other vaccines.
Also in 1951, Lacks’ children watched her writhing in excruciatingly pain until she died from cancer at age 31 in a “colored ward.” She was buried in an unmarked grave.
Not only was it devastating for Lacks’ children to lose their mother, her impoverished family didn’t see a dime from biotechnology and other companies that made billions from her cells. Money that would have put food on the table, paid for college and more. Money that would have helped elevate the lives of her children.
Biotech businesses have patents and copyrights galore that benefit scientists, investors and pharmaceutical companies. All the while, Lacks’ family went without.
Currently, when systemic racism and inequities are hot topics – particularly with school boards looking at curriculums at district and state levels – this history lesson is a cautionary one. It’s one we want in our textbooks. Students would be exposed to medical ethics – what’s right, what’s wrong – to prevent anything like this ever happening again.
On its website, Johns Hopkins Medicine said it should have “done more to inform and work with members of Henrietta Lacks’ family out of respect for them, their privacy and their personal interests. Though the collection and use of Henrietta Lacks’ cells in research was an acceptable and legal practice in the 1950s, such a practice would not happen today without the patient’s consent.”
Nothing about monetary compensation after all these decades.
In October 2021, the estate of Henrietta Lacks filed a lawsuit against Thermo Fisher Scientific, Inc., a multibillion-dollar biotechnology corporation. More lawsuits are likely.
But mostly, her descendants have said they just want the world to know that advanced medicine came about directly from cells extracted from Lacks.
When Lacks danced, it was usually with one of her kiddos in her arms. She loved spaghetti, wore red nail polish and opened her home to anyone who needed a friend. Lacks was the rock within her extended family.
So much more to say about Lacks than Gen. Lee. The statue in Lacks’ honor doesn’t do justice. What it does do is acknowledge her, and keep her story alive.
More medical miracles are growing in labs every day. All thanks to an extraordinary woman who was the friendly neighbor, the loving mom next door. Someone who was seemingly ordinary.
