The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words - 2

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks - Essay ExampleDr.Gey extracted some of the cells for his own research without Henriettas knowledge or consent. Soon, Henrietta died because of the fast spread of her cancer. The in truth cells which Dr.Gey had procured became the immortal HeLa cells that are being used worldwide even today. The HeLa cells history is shrouded by a number of ethical issues. One of the very first ethical issues that I find really surprising is that the HeLa cell industry was a huge and profitable industry but Henriettas family were non entitled to any profits or shares. Henriettas cells were being commercially exploited by the researchers who made billions of dollars from it but Henriettas own family which was very poor, remained in that very state unaware of the riches that Henriettas cells were fetching others. This was purely unethical on the part of the researchers because they commercialized Henriettas cells without the knowledge or the laudation of her husb and or other family members. In fact Henriettas family did not even know about the existence of Henriettas cells. But, in the 1950s no ethical guidelines and tissue ownership rules had been laid down. However, today we understand that commercialization of cells and tissues may be of great worth to the donors and we do have bioethical laws to protect the just of the donors. However, there are loopholes in the law which is evident from Moores case. Moore suffered from a very rarified case of cancer- hairy leukemia, which was diagnosed by Dr.Golde but soon Golde understand that Moores body cells were very special. Most cells are worth cryptograph individually, but Moores were special. They produced several valuable proteins used to treat infections and cancer and carried a rare virus that might lead to treatments for H.I.V. (Skloot, 2006) and without informing Moore, Golde got a consent. Moore was unaware of his cells potential but soon got to know about it worth. However he lost t he case because he had signed the consent form. The court however agreed that Golde should have had informed Moore about his intentions. This brings me to my second ethical issue- voluntary date and consent. It the right of every human being to be informed about a research before he/she voluntarily participates in it. In Henriettas case, she had no choice of being a voluntary histrion. Dr.Gey decided to extract and study the abnormal cells of Henriettas body. Lacks had no idea what Dr.Geys intentions were. Her doctor told her nothing about the cells and his personal wish to extract and study them. This was surely unethical because the tumorous cells belonged to Henrietta solely and Dr.Gey had no right to use them without the knowledge of Lacks. In case he did want to use her cells for investigation, he should have had explained the same to Henrietta and waited for her approval but instead he opted to extract the cells all by himself making Henrietta an involuntary participant in h is studies. Today, researchers are bound to inform everything about the intended research before asking the participant to take part in it. Here too, the purpose of participation lies solely with the participant and the researchers have no say in it. The final ethical issue that struck me was that of confidential identity. It should be the responsibility and moral obligation on part of the researcher to safeguard the true