Insider Paper: Relatives of Henrietta Lacks, an African-American woman whose unwittingly harvested cancer cells spawned revolutionary advances in medicine, has reached a settlement with Thermo Fisher that ends legal action against the biotech firm, lawyers announced Tuesday.
“The parties are pleased that they were able to find a way to resolve this matter outside of court,” the Lacks family’s attorneys said in a statement.
In 1951, tobacco farmer Lacks was battling cancer. During attempts to cure her shortly before she died at age 31, her abnormally resilient cancer cells were removed from her tumor and used for decades without her family’s knowledge.
The cells, dubbed HeLa for the first letters of her first and last names were the first-ever human cells to grow endlessly in the lab — all others harvested up to that point died.
Research using the cells led to Nobel-winning discoveries, and laboratories worldwide used them to develop vaccines — notably against polio — as well as in cloning, in-vitro fertilisation and many medicines, fueling an industry now worth billions of dollars. MORE
Good for them. This type of settlement might not be possible in the future. I’ve read some opinions that once a person has been jabbed with mRNA the pharmaceutical will own the rights to you. I’m no lawyer, I’ve just read that.
“abnormally resilient cancer cells”
I’m not a doctor, but that strikes me as the perfect definition of a democrat.
““They treated her like a specimen, like a lab rat,” her grand-daughter Kimberly Lacks said in 2021, describing the cell theft as racism.”
Forget that this poor woman’s cancer cells exhibited characteristics never seen before, and that those characteristics made them ideal lab specimens. Just go straight to racism as the reason why the researchers did this. (Never minding that many of those researchers would also be black.)
I’m sorry for Ms. Lacks, but her descendants are apparently a bunch of fucking dimwits.
and soon you’ll be able to have HeLa burgers delivered by doordash
They deserved the payout.
They will spend it as wisely as Rodney King spent his.
“Kimberly Lacks said in 2021, describing the cell theft as racism.”
Play that race card and get no sympathy from me. They took the cells because she had a type of cancer cells that they had never seen before. The nedical profession back in those days did weird medical experiments on people. Women in the 50’s were given an anti-miscarriage drug, (DES?) which in females, cervical cancer was showing up in female children when they reached 13 yo+. I didn’t collect anything from that fiasco that nearly killed me.
“I’m sorry for Ms. Lacks, but her descendants are apparently a bunch of fucking dimwits.”
@ Heatsync, They weren’t brain cells.
“The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.” is a fascinating read. The point is that several large industries have made Billions off Henrietta’s cells taken without her knowledge or consent and that is 100% wrong. Is it raism? I don’t know although there certainly were a lot of evil experiments carried out on Black men and women. Would it have happened if Henrietta had been White. I expect the answer is ‘yes’ after all women were still 1/2 chattel in the ’50’s.