Post-it Sunday medical non-fiction series 5/11/2025- Happy Mother’s Day to the mother of most of modern science, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

Yes, yes, Happy Mother’s Day to all mothers, be your children human or not.

The non-fiction medical book for today is The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot. Henrietta Lacks (and the cells that were taken from her cervical cancer) is the mother of most of modern medicine. Until her, the cells that were to be used to medical research died. But hers did not.

And have not. Still.

Her cells have been to outer space, ridden on airplanes, or in cars, and even in the breast pockets of pilots as the cells were flown to additional hospitals/laboratories.

I first read this book shortly after it had been published in February of 2010. The cover is striking, a beaming black woman, hands on hips takes up the left side of the cover. The right side is the title “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks” and the subtitle of ‘Doctors took her cells without asking. Those cells never died. They launched a medical revolution and a multimillion-dollar industry. More than twenty years later, her children found out. And their lives would never be the same.’ It is a striking cover with the background being, well, cells. Yellows and pinks against a red background with Henrietta Lacks in black and white with the colors bleeding over half of her.

Frankly, one of the reasons I probably picked up the book was the cover.

This is a tale of medical misadventure in the beginning of the medical marvels of the 1950s and on. Cancer treatments were developed using her cells, medication treatments were developed using her cells, the ability to keep other so called immortal cells alive was developed using her cells.

This book is the story of Henrietta Lacks. Her life was a quiet one, albeit a hard one. She was married at twenty to the father of her 2 children. He was her cousin. They went on to have three more children, moved away from their hometown to have a better life for them and the children.

Henrietta knew that something was wrong with her insides shortly after the birth of their fifth child, Joe.

This book is also the story of the explosive growth of medical innovation after the survival of Henrietta Lack’s immortal cells. It is the story of the man who first cultured the cells, of the callous way medicine used her cells but didn’t tell her family. It is the story of her family and how they survived after she died.

I don’t want to give away too much of the story but for me this is an absolute must read.

Every time I read it I notice different things. I re-read this recently and from what I know and understand now about HIPAA and medical consent as a PhD student I was struck anew of how important the story of Henrietta Lacks’ immortal cells are.

I will continue to recommend this book to all who want to learn more and those who want to know the wrong way to go about medical research. Because this book is a warning about getting it right. Not only for the family of the woman who died but for us all.