My debate on The Immortal life of Henrietta Lacks

         I read this novel my sophomore year in my AP biology class, this book is more of an educational and biological piece.  The Immortal life of Henrietta Lacks raises the questions of scientific ethics in the mid 1900s.  In this narrative writing, Rebecca Skloot takes a closer look at Henrietta Lacks' life and her immortal cells.  
          Rebecca Skloot took years in writing this book, organizing, and processing the facts she got from Henrietta's family, as well as getting their approval of publishing it.  After the death of Henrietta Lacks, her family had no knowledge of her surviving cells known as "immortal",  because they kept on dividing and are still alive to this day.  Researchers took her cancerous cells and began experimenting with it, and companies made millions from her cells.  All the family was ever told was that these HeLa cells were helping to cure other diseases, and they were, these cells help make the first polio vaccine.  You can imagine how curious Henrietta's family were, thirsting for knowledge of their mom's cells.  All these questions of how? and what?  This topic is a topic of controversy and discussion.  Is it right to experiment on her immortal cells without the consent of her family members?
        In my opinion I felt like it was wrong and unethical for researchers to grow her cells and experiment with them  without the families consent.  Although it did provide a pathway for cures and an understanding of cancer cells.  Henrietta's family didn't benefit at all from it.  They were still living in poverty and had no answers for HeLa's cells.  It was not until decades later, the Lacks family got the answers they deserve.  On the issue of Nature, Francis Collins goes deeper into the Lacks family and discusses with the family about the possibility of releasing the HeLa genome data.  Collins refers to HeLa cells as "unique", eventually the family agrees to release Henrietta's genome.  Thank goodness this controversy is settled and may Henrietta Lacks  live in peace now, knowing that what her cells have done in the medical field and her families decision of releasing her genome.