Reading The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks - Essay Example

With this case Skloot raises many ethical issues; the credibility of the medical personnel, the implausible significance of doctor-patient confidentiality, and informed consent. Henrietta was diagnosed by the doctors at John’s Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore with cervical cancer. Once her strenuous treatment began, during a routine procedure, Dr. George Gey got hold of cancer malignancy cells from her uterine cervix in order to run tests and have an attempt of discovering a good immortal cell line.

After many futile attempts, finally Dr. Gey succeeded in acquiring and culturing the immortal cancer cells. His enthusiasm led him to dispense these kinds of cells to fellow researchers so that they could also use these cells for further research on cancer. Skloot made sure to remind the readers throughout the book; that in the 50’s women patient believed their doctors blindly for cure and diagnoses. Thus, deceptiveness was a common practice amongst the medical personals. Meanwhile, profit was derived from these precious cells and Henrietta’s family had no clue about what was happening.

They were unaware of the fact that doctors worldwide were becoming wealthy and famous with the help of their mother’s tissues. . The most heart wrenching and distressing part of the book entails the pragmatic information about Henrietta's cellular samples, which were distributed to several doctors without permission or consent of her family. Consequently, this highlights three more ethical concerns: breach of patient confidentiality, credibility of doctors and importance of an informed consent.

An example from chapter 26, Breach of Privacy, shows a specific one which states that currently publishing medical records without patient’s consent or his family; is a federal law violation. However, in early 1980s somebody traded Henrietta medical reports for huge sum of money and there were none federal medical ethic regulations present; to protect Henrietta right for confidentiality (Skloot, 211). As of now, many states in US, approximately 35 had passed laws that protect the patient’s confidentially of his medical records, but at that time Maryland was not one of them.

This shows a clear contrast between modern medical laws and laws and regulations from the early 80's. Providing any individual’s health information or medical reports or talking about his medical status to the public without taking his permission cannot happen in the current scenario without having to deal with grave consequences. On the contrary, the doctors in the book were giving all varieties of information about Henrietta's tissues to other doctors, the media, and many other personal without acknowledging patient’s family at all or their consent.

The alarming part while analyzing the Immortal life of Henrietta Lacks case was that the scientists and researchers involved in handling HeLa cells had