the immortal life of henrietta lacks by rebecca skloot essay

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Is a free market "free" if it's regulated?

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"Greed, for lack of a better word, is good": the immortal words of corporate raider Gordon Gecko, a character in Oliver Stone's 1987 film, "Wall Street." Gecko continues in his speech to shareholders, "Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit" [source: IMDb ]. Greed also forms the basis of capitalism . And capitalism is founded on a free market.

Greed is another word for the economics term rational maximization . This is the (supposedly innate) desire to get as much for oneself as possible. Theoretically, this makes sense; we humans desire to ensure our survival. But in practice, the idea that all humans rationally maximize doesn't always stand up (see What's the ultimatum game? ).

This, in part, explains why there is a long-standing debate over just how freely a free market should be allowed to operate. That debate heated up in the United States in 2008 as the federal government took control of financially crumbling mortgage holders Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The move wasn't essentially dramatic; Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, though privately operated, were chartered by Congress (Fannie Mae was chartered during the Great Depression). But the takeover prompted fears of a nationalization of the U.S. economy.

Nationalization occurs when full or partial control is taken of private financial institutions, usually to avert a crisis. Scandinavian nations successfully averted an economic meltdown through nationalization in the early 1990s, and in 2007 and 2008, the federal government of the United States took similar actions. The Federal Reserve Bank oversaw the buyout of investment bank Bear Stearns by rival JPMorgan, guaranteeing $30 billion in Stearn's bad debt and even bending to shareholders who forced a higher price per share during the buyout. Even more pronounced, the government took a 79.9 percent stake in private insurance company AIG in return for an $85 billion investment to save the company.

Under pure capitalist theory, none of these actions should've been taken; the government should have stood by idly while the economy tanked. So how can a free market be "free" if it's regulated?

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"There Is No Better Use of a Life Than To Be Attentive"

It's increasingly easy to ignore what's around us at any given point and pay attention instead to our phones, computers, or other gadgets. However, as novelist Jonathan Safran Foer reminds us in an essay for The New York Times, paying attention to people around us is a valuable skill.

We're all prone to think about ourselves a bit, or disappear into our phones instead of paying attention to the world. As Foer points out, that leads to trouble if we're not careful:

Most of the time, most people are not crying in public, but everyone is always in need of something that another person can give, be it undivided attention, a kind word or deep empathy. There is no better use of a life than to be attentive to such needs. There are as many ways to do this as there are kinds of loneliness, but all of them require attentiveness, all of them require the hard work of emotional computation and corporeal compassion.

Foer's not condeming technology by any means, but it's a nice reminder that sometimes we need to pay a bit more attention to the people around us.

How Not to Be Alone | The New York Times

Photo by Matt Kowal .

Henrietta Lacks - Free Essay Examples And Topic Ideas

Henrietta Lacks was an African-American woman whose cancer cells were used without her consent to create the first immortal human cell line, crucial for medical research. Essays on Henrietta Lacks might explore the ethical implications of her story, the advancements in medical research attributed to HeLa cells, or the intersection of race, ethics, and medical experimentation. Her story provokes discussions on informed consent, medical ethics, and the historical exploitation of marginalized groups within medical research. We have collected a large number of free essay examples about Henrietta Lacks you can find at PapersOwl Website. You can use our samples for inspiration to write your own essay, research paper, or just to explore a new topic for yourself.

“The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks”

"The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks" tells a story about racism, painful life experience of a family and scientific ethics violation. Cell line referred to as Hela is the genesis of an extensive medical research. In Rebecca Skloot's book, "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks", Rebecca presents the life events of Henrietta Lacks, a mother of five who was diagnosed with cervical cancer upon delivery of her fifth born child, Joe. At four years old, her difficult life begun when […]

Book Review of the Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

From her first diagnoses, there was something uncanny about the cancer cells on Henrietta Lacks' cervix. Before taking Lacks life in 1951, they took on a life of their own. HeLa (named from the initials two letters of her first and last name) cells were removed during a biopsy without Lack’s or her family’s authorization, they were then multiplied in a John Hopkin’s lab and were the first cells to have ever done so thus being known as the first […]

DNA: what is yours Worth?

Introduction The HeLa cell was discovered in 1951 from a cervical tumor taken from a cancer patient named Henrietta Lacks. These cells were important because they did not die after a few days like previous ones did because they were able to create a cell line. If one cell died, scientists used another one from the same sample. (1) These cells have led to scientific breakthroughs and new treatments and information surrounding the human body. The primary ethical question in […]

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

Baltimore. Hennie and David had several children: David Jr., Deborah, Elsie, Zakariyya Bari Abdul Rahman, and Lawrence Lacks. Unfortunately, their daughter Elsie, died at the age of 15 from developmental disabilities. “Henrietta Lacks was feeling discomfort in her lower abdomen even before she was diagnosed with cervical cancer. When she expressed her concern, the doctors told Henrietta that she was feeling the pain from a child forming inside of her.” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henrietta_Lacks,, 2019) She was not satisfied and didn't believe that […]

Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks Book Review

“The Immortal life of Henrietta Lacks” is about a woman named Henrietta lacks who was diagnosed with cervical cancer in 1951. In chapters 1-5 we are given information relative to her the upbringing and how she found out she had cervical cancer. In chapter 1 we learn that after she had given birth to her 4th child she was experiencing extreme amounts of pain which she assumed to be from an undiagnosed std given to her by her husband. She started bleeding […]

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HeLa Cells – Revolutionary Medical Advances

Reflective Assignment #1 HeLa cells have led to the most revolutionary medical advances in society today, they have also led to some of the greatest controversies. This all began with a woman named Henrietta Lacks. A wife, a mother, and a cousin, Henrietta spent her whole life helping others until she was diagnosed with cervical cancer. During one of her treatments, a sample of tissue from Henrietta cervix was taken. With her sample, George Gey produced the first immortal human […]

The Death of Henrietta Lacks

In the 1950s, American society still embraced social equality matters where segregation and racism was standard practice. These problems are an origin for several of the issues that arise in The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, written by Rebecca Skloot. Henrietta died a very personal, painful and private death at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland; then, the only real choice for free but segregated medical care for impoverished African American patients around. Treatment at Hopkins for Henrietta and other […]

“The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks” by Rebecca Skloot

The book “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks”, written by Rebecca Skloot, focuses on three parts: Life, Death, and Immortality. It is about an African American woman named Henrietta Lacks, who died from cervical cancer. Lacks was married to David Lacks and mother of five children. Before her death doctors at Johns Hopkins Hospital collected samples of her cells without her or her family’s consent. The cells were obtained for the purpose of doing research and experiments. Cultured by Dr. […]

Racism in the Field of Medicine

"In recent years, the debate surrounding racism has made a large resurgence. While the ‘new’ racism is partially fueled by the presidential election, the subsequent fight against it and the debate about it are both caused by the weight and power that racism holds over the world. One aspect that is often overlooked is racism in the medical field. Whether it be receiving good healthcare, diagnosing mental health, being prescribed the right medicine, or the treatment that minorities received in […]

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks Literary Analysis

Morality could be defined as the things you are taught about been right and wrong. You probably develop morality when your parents/guardian would tell you to respect your elders, keeps your promises, forgive or punish. Morality is something important we should know because it's a guide or reminder to respect others and to be a better person. Henrietta Lacks is an important African-American female in modern cells. Lacks was a “black woman born of slavery and sharecropping who fled north […]

Henrietta Lacks Life

On October 4, 1951, a 31-year-old woman named Henrietta Lacks died at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland [1]. However, fragments of her remain very much alive in biomedical research labs all over the world. Today, anybody can purchase cells from her body from numerous lab supply companies by the millions without any permission from Henrietta’s family [2]. This immortality is part of a complicated story involving biology, ethics, race, medical research, and patient privacy. This story was explored in […]

HeLa the Immortal Cell

Cells are the basic building blocks of life and make up all living organisms. There are two classifications of cells in every organism called prokaryotes and eukaryotes. A prokaryotic cell composes of single cell organisms like bacteria for example. While, a eukaryotic cell consists of multicellular organisms, the example for that is humans. The human body contains 75 trillion cells and each has its specific purpose and functions that they carry out throughout the human body. The human body is […]

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks Book Response

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skoot is a shocking story that unfortunately follows a dark trend in American History. Henrietta Lacks was not the first black person to be taken advantage of by doctors or researchers. There is a long history of black people being experimented on without giving proper consent. These people were abused as test subjects for the purposes of scientific breakthroughs. The story reminded me of the syphilis experiments where black men were injected […]

Henrietta Lacks and the HeLa Cells

Henrietta Lacks was a thirty-one year old woman that visited Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland in 1951. She was an African-American mother of five. Johns Hopkins was the only hospital in the area that treated African Americans, although the hospital was still segregated at the time. While there, doctors confirmed she had cervical cancer. Lacks received numerous treatments including radium. Unfortunately, Henrietta died on October 4, 1951 from terminal uremia. This is a condition that caused blood poisoning from […]

The Legacy of Henrietta Lacks: Controversy over HeLa Cells

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks centers around a unique line of cancer cells taken from an African American woman named Henrietta Lacks. She was diagnosed and subsequently died of cervical cancer in 1951. It was astonishing to uncover the raw size of the cell line and the myriad research used to which her cells were put unparalleled in modern biological science. The cells replicated constantly and voraciously and have to date produced approximately 50 million metric tons of cellular […]

Who Owes the Henrietta Lacks Family?

Imagine being in a situation where your tumor cells were used for countless scientific experiments, without your consent. Safeguards today are in place to prevent such a situation, but in 1951 a woman, Henrietta Lacks, and her family found themselves in that very situation. Rebecca Skloot unveiled Henrietta’s story in a book called The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, that was then made into a movie April of 2017. Henrietta’s story raised questions about ethics, and race. The book shed […]

Ethics & Informed Consent of Human Research

By definition, ethics is “a set of moral principles” and “dealing with what is good and bad with moral duty and obligation” (Ethic, Merriam-Webster). The general concept of ethics can be considered very subjective, depending on the scenario. When it comes to ethics in science, it is not black and white, nor will it ever be. As for the ethical principles of human subjects in research, there are three general principles to follow: respect, beneficence, and justice. The International Ethical […]

Henrietta Lacks – Scientist

Although Henrietta Lacks died 65 years ago, her cells known as the HeLa line, live on, propelling scientific advances around the world. After their discovery, HeLa cells enabled the development of in vitro fertilization, the first clone of a human cell, the development of the polio vaccine, advances in gene mapping, and so much more. However, prior to the publishing of Rebecca Skloot’s The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, few people knew the source of the HeLa cells. Skloot’s book […]

“The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks” by Rebecca Skloot Essay

Rebecca Skloot wrote an award-winning non-fiction book that was published in 2010. Now, when I say award winning, I mean award winning. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks shattered the public view and rightfully so was the winner of multiple awards. The life of Henrietta Lacks, originally just an afterthought, is brought to light. Where we see a poor African American women from the 1950's who suffered from cancer but had no knowledge of how hospitals or the health care […]

‘Henrietta Lacks’: a Donor’s Immortal Legacy

The book “Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks” is a true book of her life experience written by American writer Rebecca Skloot. The book examines Henrietta Lacks, a poor tobacco rancher from the Southern US, whose cervical disease cells were gathered in 1951. Henrietta never knew that she was being so generous .Without her understanding or consent or any monetary pay, these cells were utilized to make an immortal cell line known as HeLa that researchers are utilizing right up 'til […]

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks Essay

Henrietta Lacks was a key component behind the groundbreaking discoveries that changed the history of science and medicine forever. Henrietta and the Lacks family tree dates back through generations of plantation workers and slavery. With the time of her story being post Civil War era, I believe it should be highly considered that her consent to medical practice was taken advantage of. Henrietta suffered from cervical cancer. Presently, her cancerous cells turned out to become the first immortal cell line. […]

Hennrietta Lacks’ Medical Case

"In January 1951 Henrietta Lacks a 30-year-old African-American lady from Baltimore, was accurately diagnosed to admittedly have cervical malignancy at the Johns Hopkins Medical Center. She was attended to with radium brachytherapy, the specific standard of practical consideration at the appropriate time, yet her rare condition severely exacerbated. In August, seven precious days after she eagerly turned 31, she was promptly admitted to the specialist clinic with extreme stomach torment. Under three critical months after the unfortunate fact, she died […]

The Value and Ownership of Human Tissue and the Ethical Dilemma in the Case of Henrietta Lacks

Rebecca Skloot's book, "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks," is about a woman whose cervical cancer was the source of a cell line used in drug development and other research. Despite this, she remained virtually unrecognized. Shouldn't she have shared in the profits of one of the most successful cell researches ever done? Even though her cell name may be immortal, the name of Henrietta Lacks could remain unrecognized. People should be compensated or at least recognized for something that […]

Essay about Period of Segregation

"During the period of segregation, also known as the American Apartheid, the policy of separate but equal resulted in a situation more than racial separation. American apartheid created inequality supported by the law and imposed through terror and violence. In southern states such as Georgia and Florida, segregation meant that the blacks were to get access to inferior education, poor health care and they were to live in houses in poor conditions, glazed by lead and infested by bugs. However, […]

Our Responsibility to Acknowledge the Sacrifices Made by Individuals Throughout History

We all learn in public school science class of the major discoveries made by world renowned scientists and doctors. We all learn about the spread of STDs and the importance of protection to prevent a world of pain and unhappiness. We all learn about the evils of cancer and how the mysterious disease is infecting our world like a plague. We all learn about the anatomical makeup of our bodies and how the surgeries can heal us after an accident. […]

Controversy Around Genetic Ownership

"There are many ethical debates and controversy around genetic ownership. For instance, Henrietta Lacks. She was a black woman who went to the hospital for help due to a painful ‘knot’ in her womb. After being referred to John Hopkins, she is misdiagnosed and treated for the wrong illness, As she was going through ‘treatment’, tissue samples from her cervix were taken by an assistant without her consent or knowledge and given to Dr. George Otto Gey, who created a […]

Discoveries in Biological Science

The world of biological science is a diverse, fascinating and ever-changing field. One that is filled with many ground-breaking discoveries that continue to shape the world we live in today. Within the past 200 years, advances in technology have rapidly increased which has led to incredible biological breakthroughs. Biologists like Alexander Fleming, Marie Curie, and George Otto Gey, have paved the way for our future generations. Just under 100 years ago, a biologist, and physician, by the name of Alexander […]

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A Life of Suffering in The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

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