Book Review: The Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot

Jean-Paul’s Rating: 4/5 stars

Imagine if you were responsible for hundreds of medical breakthroughs and you never even knew about it.  Imagine if you were responsible for hundreds of medical breakthroughs and no one else knew about it either.  So was the life of Henrietta Lacks.  Henrietta was killed by a particularly vicious form of cervical cancer that consumed her body in a matter of months.  Early in her treatment, doctors took a biopsy of her cancerous cells and found something remarkable.  They did not die.  Cells, when taken out of a host, tend to be very difficult to keep alive and could only divide a certain amount of times before they stopped dividing.  Henrietta’s cells not only stayed alive, they thrived and kept dividing forever.  Scientists finally had a source of cells to perform research on that bypassed many of the troubles they had with other cell lines.  Thus the HeLa cell line was born.

The book can really be divided into three distinct but intertwining stories; Henrietta’s story, her cells’ story, and her family’s story.

Henrietta’s story is interesting.  Skloot does a very effective job of humanizing a woman whom nobody knows but everyone should.  Until quite recently, every medical professional had heard of HeLa cells but few knew of the person from which they came.  She didn’t deserve the death she had, but her death led to the saving of, likely, millions of lives.  It is only fair that her actual life be immortalized in the same way her cells continue to live past her death.

HeLa’s story is absolutely fascinating.  Scientists have since figured how to make other cell lines immortal, but no others have ever come directly from a human being save HeLa.  There are more HeLa cells spread around the world than made up Henrietta Lacks’ body.  We are talking measuring in tons.  The amount of breakthroughs that were a direct result of being able to test with HeLa cells is remarkable.

The Lacks family story is a bit, er, lacking.  When the story is on point and directly tied to their attempts to cope with the knowledge that their mother has the status that she does and the moral implications of people using her cells, it is both riveting and sad.  There were so many people who tried to help and as many people who tried to take advantage of the Lacks family that they ended up not knowing who to trust.  Their distrust was so great that it is remarkable that Rebecca Skloot was able to write the book in the first place.  The Lacks family story revolves around one question; who owns your cells and who gets to profit from them?  The answer remains to this day unanswered under law.

“The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks” is a book that should be read by all.  Henrietta Lacks is a woman who should be known by all.  It is mind-blowing that so much good can come from the death of one woman.

The Universally Feared Bike Brigade

I had a dream where I was chosen to join an elite crew that went on dangerous missions throughout the world.  The training consisted mostly of riding bikes places and being able to assemble and disassemble them.  We went out on our first mock mission and I was assigned a tandem bike and we rode to what looked like downtown Evanston.  When we got there, the drill sergeant told me to give him my pliers.  I didn’t have any pliers.  He proceeds to ream me for not having pliers and not being prepared and how was I supposed to fix a bike if I didn’t have pliers.  I argue with him that no one told me that I needed to bring pliers and besides he had a pair of pliers in his hand already.  He responded that he isn’t always going to be there to supply me with a pair of pliers and what would I do then?  He then shows me this large chart of tools that he expects me to have at all times and that if I want to stay in this unit I need to shape up.  Then I woke up.

Fist Of Jesus

What happens when you combine Jesus and zombies?  This (NSFW for over the top blood):

[youtube http://youtu.be/GuKV2Z3eYTY]

Anyone Remember These Commercials?

I was in the shower this morning when this randomly popped into my head:

I have no idea why that popped into my head.  It’s best not to ask questions of my brain.  It’s an incredibly creepy but effective ad.  That sent me spiraling into a Youtube vortex of Mormon commercials from the 80s.  Remember this one:

Or this one:

The last one is interesting because it features a black kid.  Why is that interesting?  Let’s just say the Mormons aren’t know for their racial sensitivity towards Blacks.

There are other commercials too, but the above are my favorite.  They’re simple, catchy, and tell an important moral lesson without being preachy aside from the memorable “From the Church of Jesus Christ of Later-Day Saints, the Mormons!” at the end.

Three-Fifths Of A Living Wage

I recently read that phrase on a blog post that I have since forgotten, but the phrase itself stayed with me.  That’s some really powerful imagery in a few words.

Obviously, living on minimum wage is not anything nearly as bad as slavery was, but the phrase isn’t meant to evoke the way minimum wage earners are treated physically but the way they are treated politically and socially and in that respect there is a lot of similarity.  Giving every person the ability to have a 40 hour work week which pays a living wage would go a long way towards equality.

I don’t have much else to add about the subject past what I’ve already written in my American Disdain for the Poor post.  The phrase just stuck with me so I thought I’d share.

LOL Of The Day

There has been a brouhaha over a Ten Commandments monument on the grounds of the Oklahoma State Capitol Building.  The ACLU has sued saying it’s a governmental establishment of a religion which directly contradicts the First Amendment.  It certainly does, but that’s not what’s funny.  What’s funny is what happened next.  A few other religions then requested to put their own monuments on the grounds.  This would certainly be a way for Oklahoma to skirt the First Amendment violation.  The only problem is that one of the first to apply for adding a new monument was the Church of Satan.  Well, they recently released a design proposal for said monument and it’s…well, take a look:

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The best part is you can sit on Satan’s lap!  BWAHAHAHAHA!  There is no way in hell (ha!) this gets approved, but oh, would it make the Oklahoma State Capitol Building a tourist attraction.

Goodbye Net Neutrality

Here’s an inventive way to screw over the Internet.  Take a service you put an arbitrary cap on, say cell phone data plans, and then offer companies an opportunity to bypass that cap by paying a nominal fee.  As if I needed another reason to hate AT$T.

I have to admit, it’s a wickedly inventive way to wedge your way into disbanding net neutrality.  Cell phone companies have long charged more for more use for minutes and texts and data plans, but now they’re offering customers the chance to use certain web sites that won’t count as going over their cap.  It’s a win-win situation for AT$T.  Customers get to use unlimited data for certain sites and AT$T gets more money from the companies that can afford to bribe them the extra costs.

AT$T gets away with that for a few years and then Comca$t can come in and complain that AT$T has a market advantage by being able to charge more for allowing companies unlimited access to their networks.  Soon, all of net neutrality is completely thrown away causing a massive shrinkage in the amount of commercially viable websites on the Internet.

The Beauty Of Winter

I couldn’t find my good camera so these were taken with my phone, but the still turned out pretty nice. Ice crystals forming on my window. It is amazing how delicate they look.

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