The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

Pages 101-200

          In this section of the book two big events are touched on. First Bobette, Henrietta's sister-in-law, discovers the scenario with the HeLa cells accidentally. Due to her lack (Yes, I did it again) of education she doesn't really understand. She confusingly calls Day and tells him that part of Henrietta is still alive. They begin searching for her "alive parts". Its difficult to read this part because I can't help but think, "How could anyone be that foolish?" But I try to remember that this is in a time and demographic were education was seldom afforded. They don't understand the meaning of what these HeLa cells are, and its beyond frustrating.  I just want them to simply say cells, instead of "alive parts", but that doesn't happen till later when they actually get a full understanding (kind of).
         Also in this section of the book the HeLa cell contamination is widely discussed. As discussed in my previous post, HeLa cells grow in faster and in larger quantities than most cells, therefore, they are difficult to control. In many, most, of the laboratories that used HeLa cells they were so out of control that they infested other cultures. Once a cell line is infested by HeLa it is nearly impossible to eliminate the contamination.
This part is so interesting !!!! When a researcher is conducting his experiment on his daughter's cells he identifies an African American marker. Which would not belong to his daughter. He begins looking into the genetic markers on different cell cultures and realizes that HeLa cells are in many that they shouldn't be. Keep in mind through the past more than 20 years scientists have been doing research on many other cell lines for different things. The contamination of these cell lines invalidated thousands of scientist's research, research they had been working on for decades, gone.  For this reason many scientists didn't want to believe it. Its like something out of a Science Fiction movie. Its as if the HeLa cells had infested everything. Little parts of Henrietta Lacks, several decades dead, everywhere. A lot of progress made in the field of genetics and cytology was never really progress at all. I can't imagine the frustration. Just think people, how do you feel when you realize you messed up a 40 minute lab and you have to start over? Now thing how would you feel if you realized you messed up at 20 year lab and have to start over? Yikes.
       Another thing that I want to discuss, even though it only lightly relates to the book, is race and education. I want to know if there is a rhyme of reason as to why certain races value or utilize education more. Why were the three finalists in the Scripps National Spelling Bee all Indian-American, when they represent only about 1% of the population? I wonder if it is solely due to the way the children are parented, religion, or areas they are raised in? It is strange. Race, or rather simply skin color, is segregating, without there being any actual segregation (legally, some people are unfortunately racist still ).