Book report Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words - 2

Book report - Essay Example HeLa succeeded where all other human samples failed. The cells were continuously multiplying and Gey gave away the laboratory grown cells to his colleagues. Soon Henreitta Lacks died of aggressive cervical cancer. However, her cells taken without knowledge multiplied onto a scale, they would weight more than 50 million metric tons. HeLa cells were used for developing vaccines, to understand the behavior cancer cells, viruses and used in the research of gene mapping and to find and the effects of nuclear bombs on human cells. The Hela cells were commercialized and built multimillion dollar industries. Thousands of careers were built on the Hela cells. The Henriatha Lacks's family did not know about all these things until 1970. While Lacks's world changing cells were minting money on commercial scale, Henreitha Lacks's children and their children lived in poverty and could not afford medicare and health insurance, Instead they were also unethically recruited into HeLa research without their informed consent. In the words of Lacks's youngest daughter Deborah "If my mother's cells done so much for medicine, how come her family can't afford to see no doctors?" The story's main theme is about bad medical ethics and social wrong committed by medical establishment. The main theme raises question about racism and accessibility to health care. It also raises important question about medical compensation to patients and their families. Henreitta Lacks, the 31 years old African- American woman who had once been a tobacco farmer is the main character of the story. She comes fully alive in the pages of book. According to Gey's lab assistant Mary Kubicek when "I saw those toenails, I nearly fainted. I thought, of jeez, she is a real person" The story deals with the complex emotional, scientific and legal issues the main character's family faced. The other primary character is Deborah, Henreitta Lack's youngest daughter. She is the main driving force of the story. She travelle d to many places with Skloot in pursuit of her mother's legacy, which led her to believe that her mother was eternally suffering from all the research conducted on her cells. She is a spiritual person believing in the immortality of her mother both literally and spiritually. George Gay plays on important role in the story. Without him the world would not have known about Henreitta Lack's immortal life. Without him the science and medical care would not have found care for many diseases and without him the questions about bioethics would not have been raised. Rebekka Skloot, the science journalist is also a primary character whose decade of research took her to Lacks's family. Her vivid account about the life of Henritta Lacks's family unravels the story behind the cell research. She narrates lucidly the racial politics of medicine, poverty and science behind the important medical discoveries. The book is entwined with the implications of ethical leadership. The ethical leadership in medicare is involved in a manner that respects the right and dignity of others. Leaders who are ethical are people oriented and responsive to the needs of people If the leaders are ethical, they can ensure that ethical practices are carried out throughout the organization. Henreitta Lacks was never asked for her consent for removing her tissues. At present, the dignity is an important issue for medical researchers. It has been invoked in bioethics of human genetic engineering. The Declaration