It seems silly to go over the “plot” of this biography of
Mrs. Lacks again, so I will just say that this non-fiction work details how
Mrs. Lacks and her family were lied to, misled, ill informed, taken advantage
of and used by the medical community after her cancerous cells were found to be
able to multiply indefinitely. Without
compensating, or even acknowledging, the person from whom the cells were
obtained, her cells were first given away, then sold, in order to advance
medical knowledge.
The book is exceptionally well written, reading at times
like a medical thriller. But at others, it
serves as an introduction to medical/scientific ethics and experimentation. Skloot writes clearly enough so that even
those who failed high school biology will get the gist of the medical
experience of the Lacks family. Author Skloot
becomes a major player in the book when she engages Henrietta’s daughter,
Deborah, as friend, mentor and
ally. The author’s involvement in the
story and with the central players may become a topic for book groups to discuss. How “disinterested” a writer can an author be
when they are so intimately involved in their investigation that they become a
part of the story. Would the book have
been a bestseller if Skloot was not a part of the story? Could it even have been written?
Book groups will find the ethics of the various medical
teams to be incredulous in the face of today’s laws concerning medical
privacy. Groups may want to investigate the
case of John Moore, a “modern” lapse of medical ethics, mentioned briefly in
the book.
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