~ Rebecca Skloot
Am so happy with all the reading I am doing. But I just realized that I have completely leaned towards non-fiction. The quality of non-fiction I am reading these days is so high that for a book of fiction to measure up, it would have to come highly recommended and be really good. Anyway, the most recent read was this book by a first time author that was on the New York Times Best Seller's list for some 30 or so weeks, and has won numerous other accolades.
The book is about a bunch of cancerous cells taken from a black woman in the 1950's in Maryland without her explicit knowledge or consent, which were then grown in labs and distributed world-wide and used for scientific research, and were responsible for finding cures for a whole wide range of diseases and illnesses. These cells were known as the HeLa cells and are in use even today. So, even though cancer brutally killed Henrietta Lacks, her cells lived on, and continue to live half a century later, and form the foundation of all forms of medical research. The story is about the devastating effects of the disease of cancer, and the ethical issues of race and patient consent in the world of medical research.
What I absolutely loved about the book was how the author combines details of science and medicine into a superb weave of story-telling, making Henrietta Lacks and her children and family and the doctors who treated her for cancer and the researchers who took her cells for research, all so very real.
I realized again my love for medical/biological information, especially when presented in an easy to grasp, not too super technical fashion. I was fascinated by the author's commentary in the end on the issues regarding patient consent on using body parts for research. And how this has evolved from Henrietta Lacks's time until today. The facts surrounding HeLa cells are fascinating themselves. And of course, the details of the disease that killed Henrietta Lacks, while disturbing, also are informative on just how deadly is the disease called cancer. And finally, Skloot's narration of her decade long interaction with Henrietta's children, and their life's situation, their completely human and distressing consequences because of the HeLa cells, is just plain high quality story telling.
Great book. Am definitely keeping an eye out for Skloot's future work.
Am so happy with all the reading I am doing. But I just realized that I have completely leaned towards non-fiction. The quality of non-fiction I am reading these days is so high that for a book of fiction to measure up, it would have to come highly recommended and be really good. Anyway, the most recent read was this book by a first time author that was on the New York Times Best Seller's list for some 30 or so weeks, and has won numerous other accolades.
The book is about a bunch of cancerous cells taken from a black woman in the 1950's in Maryland without her explicit knowledge or consent, which were then grown in labs and distributed world-wide and used for scientific research, and were responsible for finding cures for a whole wide range of diseases and illnesses. These cells were known as the HeLa cells and are in use even today. So, even though cancer brutally killed Henrietta Lacks, her cells lived on, and continue to live half a century later, and form the foundation of all forms of medical research. The story is about the devastating effects of the disease of cancer, and the ethical issues of race and patient consent in the world of medical research.
What I absolutely loved about the book was how the author combines details of science and medicine into a superb weave of story-telling, making Henrietta Lacks and her children and family and the doctors who treated her for cancer and the researchers who took her cells for research, all so very real.
I realized again my love for medical/biological information, especially when presented in an easy to grasp, not too super technical fashion. I was fascinated by the author's commentary in the end on the issues regarding patient consent on using body parts for research. And how this has evolved from Henrietta Lacks's time until today. The facts surrounding HeLa cells are fascinating themselves. And of course, the details of the disease that killed Henrietta Lacks, while disturbing, also are informative on just how deadly is the disease called cancer. And finally, Skloot's narration of her decade long interaction with Henrietta's children, and their life's situation, their completely human and distressing consequences because of the HeLa cells, is just plain high quality story telling.
Great book. Am definitely keeping an eye out for Skloot's future work.
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