Religious Faith and the Lack's Family

The Lack's family's beliefs helped them get through the legal issues and the media because they believed that god was watching over them along with Henrietta. Knowing that they felt safer when it came to all of these problems. In, "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks", Gary Deborah's Cousin reads a passage to the author "Those who believes in me will live, even though they die: and those who live and believe in me will never die."(Skloot 295). With quotes from the bible such as these and the lack of education that the Lack's family was able to receive due to american culture at the time it is understandable why they would compare the idea of Henrietta's immortal cancer cells to a god keeping her alive. This idea that god kept her alive to help our world up until now may have helped given the family some closure like when we hold funerals as apart of the grieving process.

Rebecca Skloot. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. Broadway Books, 2010. Print.

Catholic Catechism Question

The idea that, "the end does not justify the means", is a very true statement to me. A person should not be able to do wrong and say because it did one good thing that it was the right thing to do. Going to an extreme for this hypothetical if a Nazi scientist killed and experimented on Jewish prisoners and then cured polio would it still be ethically correct? Which most people would say no while others may say yes because it cured their polio. It depends on what your own personal beliefs. The loving your neighbor as yourself fits in with this because we all have rights and dignity we should not try to use each other as a means to an end. I would say that, "the end does not justify the means", is an ethical problem in the sense that not everyone follows it. An example of this would be the scientists in the Henrietta Lacks books which would be their making millions by using her cells to cure disease by stealing them and not giving back to her family or telling Henrietta her cells had been taken. I'm not sure if there is a solution to making sure that people follow this rule/statement other than making some law that prohibits certain actions so that the end isn't found through unjustifiable means.

Should scientists and major companies be able to patent cells?

I don't think that companies should have the right to patent cells. In the afterword section of the book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot there is a section about this, "This means pharmaceutical companies, scientists, and universities control what research can be done on those genes, and how much resulting therapies and diagnostic tests will cost" (323). This means that these groups can charge very unreasonable amounts of cash so that no one can create a cure for certain disease and monopolize the industry.


 Rebecca Skloot. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. Broadway Books, 2010. Print.

Inequality discussion

For the part of inequality disscussion I was a part of before I moved to listen to the assisted suicide group to hear their discussion was about income in equality. In the book Henrietta and her family are bellow the poverty line which is shown through the use of the free clinic and later on the fact that they could not afford health insurance. This could also be due to the fact that because of segregation they could not afford a quality education which could have lead into a better job to get them above the poverty line.

Why is chapter 23 called "It's Alive"?

The chapter is called "It's Alive" because this is when Henrietta's family finally finds out about her cells still being alive, but still don't know much about them. I feel like the title is a homage to the 1931 film Frankenstein. The title alludes to in my opinion the fact that the cells are still alive all this time and like in the 1931 film the Lack's family will get a surprise like Dr. Frankenstein.

Modern Ethics of Human Research

My article, "Ethics and non biomedical research with human subjects", by Samia Hurst is a short article about ethics comittees in Switzerland and how they are not present in scientific experiments outside the biomedical domain. I chose this article because I thought is was interesting how another country deals with ethical science. I would like to note in the article the author mentions that had the research on assisted suicide on those with PTSD and how if it were done in a university setting it would be different, "Had this study been conducted by researchers situated in a Medical School, it would have required independent review by an ethics committee."(Hurst). I wonder that if George Gey was put under an ethics comittee both then or now if anything would have been different. 

Hurst, S. “Ethics and Non Biomedical Research with Human Subjects.” Swiss Medical Weekly (2011): n. pag. CrossRef. Web. 22 Oct. 2014.

Biopsy

I don't think that you should have to re-consent for what their tissue is used for after all they could probably care less about what anybody tests on it, however the patient should receive some funds for their minor contribution in science. This could lead to problems because others who donated, but whose cells died off in the study, would want some kind of compensation for their cells too. If a donor would be contacted we have things like phones and email so it wouldn't be too hard to find them. When applied to Henrietta's time she wouldn't have been contacted for what her cells have done and would never have been paid for the use of her cells because of white privilege back then. Things like segregation, jim crow laws and ignorance would have kept all of the things above from happening.

Quote

I think that the taking of patients cells as a form of payment is extremely unethical. For a doctor to believe that taking the cells from a living patient and not compensating them is extremely unfair and possibly illegal. Henrietta didn't even know that they had taken her cells, which were scientifically revolutionary, could have gotten the family millions if they had been asked for the cells instead of them being stolen. If a consent form with a clause saying they could take them had been included maybe this would be a lot less troubling.

Life's Value

I think that while we are alive our bodies are priceless and that we should take care of them the best we can. When we die though our bodies specifically our organs are worth something. The  cost of a liver transplant is in the 500,000's of dollars and a kidney transplant is 260,000$. Considering this I would say that not all bodies are equally valuable because a healthier organ would be worth more more. At least this is my own opinion of course.