The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

Nonfiction | Biography | Adult | Published in 2010

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Chapters 17-20Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 2: “Death”

Chapter 17 Summary

This chapter recalls events from 1954-1966. As scientists continue to grow HeLa for research, Chester Southam, a virologist and cancer researcher, begins to wonder if they are in danger of becoming infected with Henrietta’s cancer. In order to assess the risks, he takes about a dozen cancer patients, telling them he is testing their immune systems, and injects them with Henrietta’s cancerous cells. He then tries the same test on healthy patients, taking prison inmates as his research subjects. In the next few years, Southam injects Henrietta’s malignant cells into hundreds of unknowing patients for his research.

In 1963, Southam attempts to continue with this research at a Jewish Hospital in Brooklyn, but three Jewish doctors insist that it is wrong to conduct research without the patients’ consent, citing the Nuremberg Code. When the research goes ahead anyway, the three doctors resign and contact a reporter. Southam and Emanuel Mandel, the director of the Jewish hospital, are found guilty in June 1965 of “fraud or deceit and unprofessional conduct in the practice of medicine” (134). Initially, their medical licenses are suspended for one year, but the sentence is later reduced to a one-year probation period.

Chapter 18 Summary

This chapter covers 1960-1966. Skloot provides information about the way HeLa transformed research—it was sent into space to assess how cells behaved in orbit and helped with various medical advances, such as the discovery that cigarettes cause lung cancer and the development of various chemotherapy drugs. However, cell culture was now flourishing to such an extent that it was becoming chaotic—scientists were not always careful to label cells properly or to prevent contamination.

The discovery that different cells can fuse together, known as “cell sex”, prompts the media to publish exaggerated stories of human-animal hybrids. Consequently, cell culture research becomes increasingly unpopular with the public.

Chapter 19 Summary

The narrative returns to Henrietta’s children (1966-1973), who are now verging on adulthood. Much to Bobbette’s disappointment, Deborah becomes pregnant at the age of 16. She gives birth to Alfred Jr. and later marries his father, Alfred “Cheetah” Carter. Bobbette insists that Deborah finish high school and looks after the baby so that Deborah can study.

Meanwhile, Lawrence and Sonny are both doing well, but Joe, the youngest, is struggling. He cannot cope with authority, and his anger is out of control. Eventually, he loses control completely and murders a young man who has provoked him. After attempting to hide from the law, Joe later turns himself in and pleads guilty; he is sentenced to 15 years. While in prison, he converts to Islam and changes his name to Zakariyya Bari Abdul Rahman.

Deborah now has a second child, LaTonya, but her marriage is abusive. Cheetah is a violent drug dealer who pushes her to the limit. Eventually, she snaps and tells Bobbette she is going to kill her husband. Bobbette persuades her to calm down; the next day, Deborah leaves Cheetah and takes her children with her.

Chapter 20 Summary

In Pennsylvania, at the Second Decennial Review Conference on Cell Tissue and Organ Culture of 1966, a geneticist called Stanley Gartler drops what would become known as the “HeLa Bomb”: he had realized that HeLa, being more powerful than most cells, may have contaminated other cells in research, for scientists had not realized that HeLa could travel on dust particles, on unwashed hands, and through ventilation systems. If Gartler’s claims are true, this invalidated much of the cell culture research from the last 15 years. However, “many scientists refused to believe HeLa contamination was real […] most researchers kept right on working with the cells he’d said were contaminated” (156). One of the exceptions was Robert Stevenson, who began to investigate the contamination problem by finding ways to specifically identify HeLa cells in a culture.

Chapters 17-20 Analysis

Southam’s research—injecting cancer cells without the knowledge or consent of the research subject—was shocking. Even more shocking was the assertion by other scientists that he was simply one of many researchers who felt consent was unnecessary. However, in the post-war period, attitudes towards human rights were beginning to change, and though Southam’s sentence was extremely light, and his career continued, the case “brought about one of the largest research oversight changes in the history of experimentation on humans” (135). What contemporarily seems like an obvious moral wrong hadn’t been thoroughly explored at this time, leaving some room for moral ambiguity. This same moral ambiguity in the scientific community appears repeatedly throughout the book, marking it as one of Skloot’s major themes.

The issues that Henrietta’s children must face show the hardships caused by the cycle of poverty. Deborah consistently suffers from abuse, first at the hands of her cousin, and next from the hands of her husband. She conceives a child young, just as her mother did, but is fortunate enough to have Bobbette supporting her so that she can finish her education.

Meanwhile, the world of scientific research is encountering another difficulty, this time caused by lack of knowledge and carelessness, particularly with regard to contamination of cells: “[M]any scientists seemed cavalier about their cultures. Few kept clear records of which cells grew from which donors, and many mislabeled their cultures, if they labelled them at all” (139).