Abuse of Lacks family

As one of a few physics students among majority of engineer students at Macaulay Honors College at the City College, sometimes my fellow Macaulay students perceive me as a detached from the mundane world person because they think physics is useless in everyday life. And I am not the only science student that faces such prejudice. The society evolved to see scientists and doctors as inhabitants of a different world where they work for a greater good of the humankind and study unimaginable things. Such cultural view has evolved from absence of communication between scientists and the rest of the society, abuse of people by scientists and detachment of scientific world from mundane world. The case of Hanrietta Lacks illustrates why such prejudice against scientists exists.

For biologist the year of birth of HeLa cells, 1951, marked the beginning of a new era where testing on human cells became possible. For Lacks family 1973 marked the beginning of a new era of horror where Henrietta’s cells were alive and used in scientific experiments. Without ability to get answers from John Hopkins hospital, Lacks were left in the darkness for another twenty-seven years. Finally Henrietta’s daughter, Deborah, and son, Zakariyya, first saw their mothers cell in the laboratory of Lengauer. However, before Henrietta’s children saw her cells in 2000, Dr. McKusick postdoctoral fellow Susan Hsu contacted Henrietta’s family in 1973. Dr. McKusick needed the blood of Henrietta’s children and husband for genetic experiments that would establish genetic markers of HeLa cells. In other words, Dr. McKusick send his postdoctoral fellow Susan Hsu with heavy English accent to contact Lacks and draw their blood.

The drawing of blood from Lacks started their abuse by the scientists. Lacks understood that their blood would be used to check if they had cancer and did not know that their blood would be used for research. Furthermore, when Deborah came to John Hopkins to give more blood, she met Dr. McKusick who started explaining where Henrietta’s cells were used without giving proper scientific background and gave her signed by him textbook on genetics and a phone number for future blood draw appointments. Such treatment clearly indicates Dr. McKusick ignorance, discourtesy and negligence of people outside of his field of study and people with lack of scientific education. He treated Deborah as a test subject while not giving her and her family courtesy for helping to solve multimillion problem with HeLa contamination. In addition, years later, when Susan Hsu learned about injustice toward Lacks family and her failure to properly explain to Lacks the need for their blood, even though Hsu was sorry for injustice, she was more concerned if she could do more research on Lacks. Therefore, the belief into scientists’ cold-heartedness and detachment from human feeling has a good soil to grow from.

And yet, not all scientists have detached from human feelings. Cancer researcher at John Hopkins Christopher Lengauer invited Henrietta’s children to his laboratory to show HeLa cells. Two of Henrietta’s children, Deborah and Zakariyya, took the offer and, twenty-seven years later since they learned that their mother’s cells were alive saw HeLa cells. Moreover, Lengauer showed where cells were kept, explained what they were used for, biology of a cell, and other necessary information Deborah and Zakariyya needed to understand what HeLa cells meant for scientific community and how they worked. In contrast to previous experience with John Hopkins’ scientists, Lengauer spent time with Deborah and Zakariyya, and, using apprehensible language, he explained science they needed to understand HeLa cells. After all most people outside biology field do not have necessary background in biology to understand the textbook on genetics given to Deborah by Dr. McKusick. So scientists need to learn to communicate with general public. No excuse can justify scientists not trying to explain their work to people outside of their area of study because scientists become a general public the moment they try to understand something outside their area of study. As a conclusion, Lacks case can be used to show how should and should not scientists treat people outside of their research area.