The case of Henrietta Lacks and the HeLa cell line derived from her cancerous cells following her death without her or her family’s consent raise numerous ethical dilemmas such as: Should the patient’s name be protected? Should the patients have to give consent? Was it right to take the cells from Henrietta Lacks? While some of these dilemmas are comparatively open-and-shut, some are more nuanced and messy to solve. The issue of identity protection has already been addressed as current cell lines are anonymous, and I tend to agree with this idea. The Lacks family was  unwillingly subjected to invasive attention as the scientific community were wide-eyed at the idea of the first in vitro human cell line for research purposes. This could have been prevented, had they not named the cell line after the patient. Yet before this question of identity protection is answered, the question of consent should have been an option decided by the family of Henrietta. Unfortunately, due to the practices at the time, research was conducted on patients in exchange for free healthcare with little regard for the patient’s consent. In addition to taking the biopsy of Henrietta’s tumor for research without consent, the family was not informed about how the cell lineage would be used in research. Though at the time, there was no way to accurately predict exactly how important this cell line would become. Sure, while the idea of a human cell line that is immortal and can survive in vitro sounds promising in the fact that researchers could finally study our species using the authentic species rather than a model of another species as done previously, the amount of research and discoveries using the HeLa cells could not have even been fathomed in 1951 when the sample was taken. The standards of today require consent to donate tissue samples from deceased patients for research which I tend to agree with because while these samples are tremendously helpful in advancing healthcare, you cannot just go around taking chunks out of deceased people without the discretion of their family. Interestingly, the Human Tissue Authority states that consent is not required for living patients if the sample is anonymized which I guess is because a living patient can grow the cells back while a deceased patient is unable to do so. In regards to the question of whether or not it was right to take the cells from Henrietta, there are two major factors that come to mind when weighing out this dilemma. The first being the ethical aspect of taking a tissue sample to then pass out around the world for research with no regard for the source of the sample. Not only was it ethically wrong to take the sample without consent, it was ethically wrong for the pharmaceutical companies to acquire profits in the millions if not billions off the mass production of HeLa cells with none of it trickling down to the poverty stricken family of which the sample originated.With out this sample, it is possible that the advancement of healthcare could have been significantly mitigated. The second factor in addressing whether it was right to take the tissue sample, is the numerous innovations in the field of healthcare due to the HeLa cells such as the polio vaccine and cancer treatments. From this perspective, I would have to say the needs of the many outweigh the consent of the few. While it may have been ethically wrong to take the sample and ship it across the world,I see it as a necessary act that progressed the field of healthcare to where is it today.

Works Cited:

1. “Donating Your Tissue for Research FAQs.” Human Tissue Authority. N.p., n.d. Web. 07 Apr. 2017.
2.  Thomas, John, Wilfrid J. Waluchow, and Elisabeth Gedge. “Case 7.3: Who Owns the Research? The Case of the HeLa Cells.” Well and Good: A Case Study Approach to Health Care Ethics. Peterborough, Ontario: Broadview, 2014. 222-28. Web.