Henrietta Lacks’ family finally received compensation over 70 years after Lacks’ cells were stolen, significantly influencing modern medicine. Lacks’ cells are one of the most important scientific discoveries of the century and have been used extensively for medical research, from testing cancer treatments to developing polio and the COVID-19 vaccines to studying the human genome. However, Lacks was never aware that her cells would be collected and used for such purposes, and for decades, neither was her family.
In 1951, the young mother of five children began experiencing some strange symptoms. After seeking treatment at John Hopkins, the only hospital in the area that would treat African-American patients, she was diagnosed with cervical cancer. During testing and treatment, a sample of her cells was taken without her knowledge or consent.
When analyzed in a laboratory, Lacks’ cells turned out to be extraordinary. They were “immortal,” the first ever to reproduce in a lab. Whereas most cells simply died after some time, Lacks would double in volume every 20–24 hours. In the right conditions, the cells could be kept alive indefinitely, likely due to the aggressiveness of her cancer and the fact that she carried Human Papillomavirus (HPV).
Researchers propagated Lacks’ cells, and they became the first immortal human cell line, known as the HeLa cell line. They became widely used by countless researchers for numerous purposes, and there are not many people alive today who haven’t benefited from the breakthroughs that HeLa cells led to. They also led to massive profits for biotechnology company Thermo Fisher Scientific. Several major biotech companies were truly built off of HeLa cells.
Lacks never knew the impact she would have on modern medicine, as she never agreed for her cells to be harvested. She passed away shortly after her cancer diagnosis and it wasn’t until 1973 that her family finally learned her cells were being widely used for research. For over 20 years, they received no communication or compensation, and were never asked for consent for continued use of Lacks’ stolen cells.
The Lacks family settles first lawsuit against biotech company
On August 1, more than 70 years after Lacks’ death, her family settled their first lawsuit against a biotech company that used and profited off of Lacks’ cells. This is not the first time they’ve attempted to take legal action for the way they were wronged, but it is the first time a settlement was actually reached.
Taking legal action has been difficult because, in the 1950s, it was not illegal to collect and use patients’ cells without their consent or knowledge. Additionally, John Hopkins has claimed it never sold or profited from HeLa cells. However, over the decades, countless other companies have used her cells and have found ways to profit from them.
Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. is one such company. Lacks’ family had accused Thermo of selling HeLa cells and also attempting to patent various products that were developed through the use of HeLa cells. While Lacks’ family has never received financial compensation for the use of HeLa cells, Thermo’s CEO reportedly took home a compensation package of $26 million in 2020. The details of the settlement were kept private, but it marked the first legal victory and compensation for Lacks’ family in over 70 years.
However, it’s difficult to call the settlement “justice” when it’s just one of countless companies that exploited or profited from Lacks’ cells. To this day, though, the wrongs committed against Lacks and her family are often minimized. Even NPR released an article putting the word stolen in quotation marks as if the cells being stolen are some unsubstantiated claim.
Just because the collection and usage of Lacks’ cells were legal in the 1950s, that doesn’t mean that justice isn’t necessary. It is widely known now that what happened to Lacks and her family was wrong, and that knowledge should have brought with it rectification. However, real justice stills seems a long way away. Many of Lacks’ relatives did not live long enough to see their first legal victory. Meanwhile, today, Black Americans are disproportionately impacted by the COVID-19 virus, despite the cells of a Black woman being used to develop the COVID-19 vaccine. It’s not just Lacks’ family that is still in need of justice, but an entire community that still suffers from racial disparities in healthcare despite their exploitation being the foundation for one of the biggest medical breakthroughs in history.
(via The New York Times, featured image: Nicholas Hunt/Getty Images for HBO)
