The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot

Examines the experiences of the children and husband of Henrietta Lacks, who, twenty years after her death from cervical cancer in 1951, learned doctors and researchers took cells from her cervix without consent which were used to create the immortal cell line known as the HeLa cell; provides an overview of Henrietta's life; and explores issues of experimentation on African-Americans and bioethics.

Recommended by Ms. Charpentier, librarian: “This book is fascinating and horrifying. Work with HeLa cells gives us the tools that save lives, but the story of the family whose bodies were used by scientists to do that work reads like dystopian science fiction.”

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