HENRIETTA LACKS AND CERVICAL CANCER TREATMENT AT JOHNS HOPKINS HOSPITAL IN 1950’S

In 1951 at Johns Hopkins Hospital, the immortal Henrietta Lacks passed away from cervical cancer. Her physician, Dr. Howard Jones, was a gynecologist who took a sample of her cancer cells during a procedure. He never asked for consent, which was a common practice at Johns Hopkins at the time.

Treatment for cervical cancer in the early 1900s was very invasive and doctors like Jones would place radium in the cervix. A tube filled with radium was placed inside the cervix, sewed into place, and then packed with gauze to ensure security; then to finish off a catheter was placed in the bladder to make sure that the treatment was not messed with. But, many patients like Henrietta Lacks had samples collected from the tumor and from the healthy tissue in her cervix. These tissues were then sent to Dr. George Gey’s lab to attempt to create immortal cells.

Patients in the 1950s often would just believe whatever was told to them when it came to medical diagnosis, without questions. In other words, benevolent deception was what doctors used to avoid scaring patients with their actually diagnosis. Physicians would hold back on telling the baseline information in order to preserve the doctor to patient relationship. This was especially present within black communities; it was only right to believe the authority of white doctors.

Throughout Henrietta Lacks’ treatment of cervical cancer, her doctors induced mass amounts of radiation upon her body, like many with malignant cancer were susceptible to. There was no cure, and physicians paraded bodies of blacks in hopes to find a one. Stories like Henrietta Lacks’ are one that was not uncommon of other African American women who stepped through Johns Hopkins. They underwent the same treatment; it was the procedure. Radiation and surgical poking and prodding, while stripping the humanity right out from under them. No routine procedure for consent, their consent was nonexistent as slices of their bodies were taken and used in the laboratory. 

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Sources:

Butanis, Benjamin. “The Importance of HeLa Cells: Johns Hopkins Medicine.” The Importance of HeLa Cells | Johns Hopkins Medicine, 11 Apr. 2017, www.hopkinsmedicine.org/henriettalacks/importance-of-hela-cells.html.

Canadian Radium & Chemical Corporation Catalog of Radium and Accessory Equipment for Modern Radium Therapy. Copyright date 1941.

Jones Jr., Howard W. “Record of the first physician to see Henrietta Lacks at the Johns Hopkins Hospital: History of the beginning of the HeLa cell line.” American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, vol. 176, no. 6, June 1997, pp. s227-s228. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0002-9378(97)70379-X

Skloot, Rebecca. The Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks. New York : Crown Publishers, 2010. Print.

Zimmer, Carl. “A Family Consents to a Medical Gift, 62 Years Later.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 7 Aug. 2013, www.nytimes.com/2013/08/08/science/after-decades-of-research-henrietta-lacks-family-is-asked-for-consent.html?auth=login-facebook.