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Descendants of Henrietta Lacks – from whom the HeLa cell line originated – are suing a biotech company they say is taking advantage of “stolen” cells from her body without her consent.
On October 4, 1951, at only 31 years old, Henrietta Lacks died, but not her cells. After Lacks arrived at Johns Hopkins Hospital – the only one in the area treating black patients – reporting a “knot” inside her, doctors diagnosed her with cervical cancer and began treating her with radium implants, a crude treatment that was standard at the time.
As part of her treatment, tissue samples were taken without her consent. After analysis, the doctors found that his cells continued to reproduce long after the cells of virtually all other samples died outside their host, and at a very high rate. The cells became known as the “immortal HeLa cell line”.
It’s hard to underestimate the importance of these cells for research. Most cells grown for laboratory research died within days, making it impossible to perform various tests on the sample. Now, with an “immortal” cell capable of dividing and replicating, researchers could undertake all kinds of research, from cloning to in vitro fertilization, which they previously could not undertake.
In 1954, Jonas Salk used Lacks cells in his research to develop the polio vaccine, mass-producing the cells to test his team’s product. After that, its cells were in high demand and were produced for commercial and medical research for scientists around the world. Over 50 million tonnes of its cells have been produced and used in over 60,000 scientific studies.
All this without his consent and for many years without the knowledge of his family. It wasn’t until the scientists realized that HeLa cells were contaminating other cultures in the lab that they searched for her family, intending to use their DNA to map Henrietta’s genes, which they found. would know which cell cultures were his cells and which were not.
The family, who had lived in poverty for years and included a homeless person, discovered that Lacks’ cells had been used to create a multibillion dollar industry.
“A Racially Unjust Medical System”
Today, nearly 70 years after his death, the Lacks estate is now suing Thermo Fisher Scientific, asking a Baltimore court to “return the full amount of its net profits made by marketing the HeLa cell line to the estate of Henrietta Lacks “.
The lawsuit alleges that Thermo Fisher Scientific knew the HeLa cells had been stolen from Ms. Lacks and chose “to use her body for profit anyway.”
“It is scandalous that this company thinks it owns intellectual property rights to its grandmother’s cells,” a family lawyer said on Monday outside a courthouse. “Why do they have intellectual rights over his cells and can they benefit from billions of dollars when his family, his flesh and blood, his black children, get nothing?”
The Lacks family case is not the only legal case brought against scientists using a person’s cell line. In 1976, it was discovered that another cancer patient named John Moore had blood cells that produced a protein capable of stimulating the growth of white blood cells. These were used without his consent. When he found out and sued it, the California Supreme Court ruled that a person had no right to their cells, even if they turned out to be of benefit to scientists.
New trial alleges that Henrietta Lacks was the victim of a “racially unfair medical system” that knowingly took advantage of her cells, and that she was not the only black woman to have had samples taken from them by a group of white doctors at Johns Hopkins in the 1950s.
“The exploitation of Henrietta Lacks represents the sadly common struggle experienced by blacks throughout history,” the lawsuit read. “Indeed, the suffering of blacks has fueled countless medical advances and profits, without fair compensation or recognition.”
“Various studies, both documented and undocumented, have thrived on the dehumanization of blacks.”
Johns Hopkins Medicine, meanwhile, says it “has never sold or profited from the discovery or distribution of HeLa cells and does not own the rights to the HeLa cell line.”
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