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One of the weirder religious manifestations of this century is The Cult of Henrietta Lacks’ Cancer Cells that is huge among NPR listeners and the like.
Now, this holiest of miracle-producing relics has its own icon. From CNN:
By Hollie Silverman, CNN, Updated 7:16 AM ET, Thu May 17, 2018
“The Mother of Modern Medicine” by Kadir Nelson, oil on linen
Notice St. Henrietta’s halo.
(CNN) Her cells are responsible for the polio vaccine, gene mapping and in vitro fertilization to name a few. But for a long time most of the public didn’t know her contribution to modern medicine. Neither did she because her cells were harvested without her consent.
This week, the Smithsonian unveiled a portrait of Henrietta Lacks, the black tobacco farmer who ended up changing the world.
… Lacks died in 1951 at the age of 31 from an aggressive form of cervical cancer. During her treatment, a surgeon cut cells from her cervix. Those cells became the first human cell line to reproduce outside the body. They came to be known as HeLa cells and became invaluable to medical researchers. …
The New York Times best-selling book, “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks,” introduced Lacks — and what she did for medicine — to the world. An HBO film by the same name, starring Oprah Winfrey, helped disseminate her story further.
How long until Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory renames its Watson School of Biological Sciences as the Lacks School of Immortal Biological Holiness? That should be Amy Harmon’s next crusade.
Just about the only people who aren’t in awe of the sacredness of Henrietta Lacks’ Legacy are the various people claiming to be her descendants who are at war with each other over the Oprah money. From the Denver Post:
On the eve of an Oprah movie about Henrietta Lacks, an ugly feud consumes the family
PUBLISHED: March 29, 2017 at 1:02 pm | UPDATED: March 29, 2017 at 7:44 pm
By Steve Hendrix, The Washington Post
BALTIMORE — The e-mail from her sister said “Read Now!” so Veronica Spencer sat right down to open it.
Maybe it was about the soon-to-be released Oprah Winfrey/HBO movie about Spencer’s great-grandmother Henrietta Lacks, the Baltimore cancer patient whose cells were collected by Johns Hopkins researchers without her knowledge. Or about Spencer’s upcoming speech in Indiana, where she would talk to medical students about Henrietta’s role in revolutionizing medicine.
Instead, she learned that her close-knit and increasingly famous family was at war with itself.
The March 2 e-mail contained a link to a college newspaper story about her grandfather and uncle. Lawrence Lacks — Henrietta’s oldest child — and his son, Ron Lacks, had long been unhappy with the family’s portrayal in the best-selling book “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks” and the way some of their relatives continue to profit from it by giving speeches around the country.
Now they were leveling a series of very public charges at the book’s author and publisher, Winfrey, HBO executives, officials at Johns Hopkins Hospital, the National Institutes of Health and other family members, accusing them variously of misrepresentation, exploitation and fraud.
The most explosive allegation was that some family members aren’t family members at all. Her Pop-pop, whom Spencer worshiped from childhood, and her Uncle Ron, who used to give her pony rides on his back, were saying that Veronica and her sister were not really their kin and that they had the DNA tests to prove it.
Ron was quoted in the story saying: “They’re not blood-related to Henrietta. … They’re not family.” …
Last month, Lawrence and Ron Lacks — with the help of a Baltimore publicist willing to make incendiary charges — began a campaign to assert near-total control over the growing endeavors surrounding Henrietta Lacks. Henrietta died in 1951, but her tumor cells have been cultivated to this day. The “HeLa” cell line has been central to the development of vaccines, cloning, gene mapping and billions of dollars in medical breakthroughs.
The story had been largely unknown until Rebecca Skloot, a science writer, and Henrietta’s youngest daughter, Deborah Lacks, spent more than a decade prying the tale from hospital archives. Skloot’s 2010 book was a commercial and critical smash, selling more than 2.5 million copies. A page-turning lesson in ethics, race and family fealty, the book is now assigned reading at hundreds of colleges and medical schools. Oprah secured the movie rights within months and will star as Deborah Lacks when the film airs on HBO April 22.
A cottage family industry has grown up around Henrietta, with multiple Lacks descendants giving speeches and starting foundations of their own. Five served as paid consultants to the movie. Spencer and her cousin, David Lacks Jr., were selected by other family members to serve on an NIH working group that reviews requests from researchers to use the HeLa cells.
None of that has sat well with Lawrence, 82, and Ron, 58, who participated in the endeavors early on but said they are now excluded.
In scores of emails and news releases sent by their publicist, Karen Campbell, they demanded that the Henrietta Lacks Foundation, established and largely funded by Skloot, be transferred to their control; that HBO and Winfrey’s Harpo Films donate $10 million each to a new foundation started in Lawrence’s name, and that a speakers’ agency stop booking other family members for appearances without Lawrence’s approval. They urged NIH to let Lawrence decide which Lacks family members would serve on the HeLa advisory group and to suspend all research funding to Johns Hopkins. They asked Penguin Random House for an advance to write their own book.
Very interesting. Next we’ll see some oil paintings and life stories of the aborted babies who gave us fetal cell research.
Right?
https://science.howstuffworks.com/innovation/everyday-innovations/lab-grown-skin2.htm
How many laboratory rabbits died to enable medical research?
Harvey was Father Hare of modern medicine.
Medical relics. The new sacred objects… at least if they’re black.
It must be James Watson’s fault.
https://www.infowars.com/south-africa-created-100-blacks-only-doctor-positions-fails-to-fill-them/
Perhaps the naming convention will now change from naming a medical cure after the inventor-doctor to naming it after a patient.
Are we allowed to notice the author’s surname & wonder about her having a wider agenda? Perhaps to strengthen the Boasian & SJ Gould school of Blank Slatism? All this pattern recognition might make a Thought Criminal of me.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rY-XDQN6ipE
Is this a thing? Having your portrait posthumously painted by the Smithsonian?
And it’s a good thing they told people she was black, because you couldn’t tell from her picture.
Also it’s not clear to me why this is supposedly to be a civil rights issue. It’s not like Big Cancer Research was paying white people royalties for their cell samples that she didn’t get in on.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/d/d7/Henrietta_Lacks_%281920-1951%29.jpg
"Whitewashing" the Mother of Modern Medicine? How dare they!
Etc.
https://thecommonconstitutionalist.files.wordpress.com/2012/02/obama-halo.jpg
But in the high-resolution version
https://cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/180516113354-henrietta-lacks-portrait-super-169.jpg
we see that the halo is actually a straw hat.
But wait. What is holding the hat to her head, at an 80-degree angle from the horizontal? Some miraculous force? Maybe it really *is* a halo -- the HeLa halo.
Sounds remarkably similar to a certain belief system!
Belief in and veneration of the”contribution” of Henrietta Lacks to medicine is comic, of course, and one reason why no matter what, white people will always laugh at black, but it’s also sad in that it implies a culture so bereft of accomplishment that it seizes upon the absurd.
By this logic, other leaders of Western medicine are fruit flies, laboratory mice and African clawed frogs.
Perhaps Steve should retitle this post “I, Steve Sailer, propose that the Watson School of Biological Science be renamed The Lacks School of Immortal Biological Holiness.”
Just in case.
Reminds me of a joke by my Criminal Law prof:
When my mom heard that Ernesto Arturo Miranda (of Miranda rights fame) had died, she said “What a shame, after all he had done for us.”
Cervical cancer is mainly a venereal disease caught by promiscuous women who sleep around, mainly with uncircumcised men, so the complexity of Henrietta Lacks family tree perhaps comes as no surprise.
Coming soon to Heartiste's Shiv of the Week.
OT: A middle-aged white guy is set upon by a flock of child-harpies at a mall for unclear reasons. One of the little harpies runs at him and he knocks her out with a right to the face. It’s on video and the girl is apparently 11-years old and appears to be black.
The media is going to go nuts over this. https://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/local/article224557240.html
* white guy
** black kids (or, as wikipedia says, "teens")
And it's a good thing they told people she was black, because you couldn't tell from her picture.
Also it's not clear to me why this is supposedly to be a civil rights issue. It's not like Big Cancer Research was paying white people royalties for their cell samples that she didn't get in on.
Yes, the painting looks much less black than the photograph on which it is based:
“Whitewashing” the Mother of Modern Medicine? How dare they!
They obviously have her DNA. Somebody should test it. How much African heritage is there?
Are we supposed to love smoking now? A tobacco farmer should be right up there with slavery for hate. Now if she were a marijuana farmer that would be different.
So that’s what they’re singing at the end. A 50-year mystery cleared up.
Why don’t blacks get credit for the Taung baby? They found it in South Africa.
Like Tommy John surgery.
How long will it take before Henrietta cracks Google’s top 10 list of American scientists?
Hypnotoad666:
You are proved correct! On Monday the Daily Mail predominately promoted this story and ran the knockdown video. Unfortunately the new DM regime ran the story as another manifestation of Black subjugation.
Dunno Steve, I know you try to keep it classy here. You could have included a few words of empathy for poor Mrs. Lacks, who suffered considerable pain before she died at 31.
It’s not her fault if the Megaphone and her grandchildren are exploiting her memory.
Oprah Winfrey playing a 30-year-old woman?
And …
Considering all the havoc being raised in the white and Jewish community by surprise 23andMe results — see this book excerpt published Tuesday at New York Magazine:
— you can predict what is going to happen when the black community ramps up its use of genetic testing. I predict about a 50-50 chance that yo’ daddy ain’t yo’ daddy.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/d/d7/Henrietta_Lacks_%281920-1951%29.jpg
"Whitewashing" the Mother of Modern Medicine? How dare they!
There are only two extant photos of her, to judge from Google Images, and to my eye neither looks black.
They obviously have her DNA. Somebody should test it. How much African heritage is there?
Do they have an oil painting of Jonas Salk, or whoever got funding for the lab so scientists could do anything with the cells, or the folks who gave her free cancer treatment, or the guy who thought to swab the cells and culture them, or…
Probably not.
Holly Silver? She loves Christmas?
Can’t find the sperm. Those hexagons (nothing says genetics like a … hexagon?) contain something like what Dan Brown types call the Flower of Life pattern. Color balance of wallpaper and dress is nice. Lacks’s skin has apparently been bleached.
Will there now be an HBO movie about Sarah Nelmes’ Cow?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smallpox_vaccine
Yes Henrietta. Your life is equivalent to trash heaps of deprogrammed cells doing their cell stuff in nutrient solutions around the world.
…embued with your unbending will.
I’m ready to throw up.
Life is a game of chance; it's fate; it's spiritual forces over which we have no control. That's why the "gibsmedats" magically appear one day and are gone the next. Sometimes lucky ... sometimes not. It's like winning the lottery.
Henrietta Lacks' relatives are only presenting their winning ticket. It's called, "Playing the Black card."
No mention of the hideous situation caused by “accidentally” contaminating vaccines all over Europe with these “wonderful cells”… I saw a truly stomach-turning documentary about these “cells of glory” once. It is a perfect example of the degenerate time we live in that this monstrous story is now told as a “bedtime story” to cheer up the kids, a charming lesson in the wonders of diversity. It might have been one of Mark Curtis’s – I’ll come back and post a link it if I remember where it was… just don’t watch it over dinner!
Adam Curtis?
Cervical cancer used to be known as prostitutes cancer. You’re right.
The irony is there are people who beleive Henrietta Lack’s cells (or the way they were stored) contributed to cancer research that was wrong. There is also a conspiracy theory that this was deliberate. Adam Curtis made a whole documentary about it.
"HeLa is also, unfortunately, the most common cell line contaminant, responsible for more than 20 percent of contaminated cell lines. This is not news: The first widespread HeLa contamination was identified in 1967, when geneticist Stanley Gartler of the University of Washington typed 18 different human cell lines. He found that every one was actually HeLa. The HeLa discovery was just the beginning. Work on contaminated esophageal cancer lines has led to more than 100 scientific publications, 11 patents, three NIH research grants and ongoing clinical trials involving cancer patients. The cell lines were actually lung, colon and stomach cancers."
Management Summary - a lot of the "cell lines" that are used by cancer and virus researchers aren't what it says on the label. Billions spent on research, billions donated by governments and charities, wasted.
"Across different fields of cancer research, up to a third of all cell lines have been identified as imposters. Yet this fact is widely ignored, and the lines continue to be used under their false identities. As recently as 2013, one of Ain’s contaminated lines was used in a paper on thyroid cancer published in the journal Oncogene. “There are about 10,000 citations every year on false lines — new publications that refer to or rely on papers based on imposter (human cancer) cell lines,” says geneticist Christopher Korch, former director of the University of Colorado’s DNA Sequencing Analysis & Core Facility. “It’s like a huge pyramid of toothpicks precariously and deceptively held together.”"
I must say John Maddox of Nature sounds a piece of work.
"Exposing contaminated cell lines cost Walter Nelson-Rees his career. He was an expert in culturing human and animal cells at the University of California, Berkeley, and ran a cell line bank in Oakland. From 1975 to 1981, he published a series of articles in Science outing contaminated lines and naming the laboratories where they had originated. His angry colleagues called his publications a “hit list.” In an editorial, Nature’s editor-in-chief, John Maddox, railed against “self-appointed vigilantes.”"
Did he then apologise, or had he been replaced?
"In April 2013, Nature published more stringent requirements, in which every author had to report the source of a study’s cell lines and whether the lines had been verified recently. "
‘I saw a truly stomach-turning documentary about these “cells of glory” once’
Adam Curtis?
Here it is:
The non-Disney version of Lack’s “miracle cells”. Should be compulsory viewing for every young person as a lesson in the demented tendencies of certain scientific pursuits – rather than destroy this super cancer, they harvested it, grew vast quantities of it… horrifying. “But muh polio vaccine!” someone says. Sure – another great “bedtime story”. Why is it that certain people want to make people live forever? Eradicate all disease? Because they believe this life is it – when you die, game over. Whether true or not, there is no question that philosophy has transformed our society in all kinds of ways – some horrifying in my view. And diseases continue to kill people, despite all the “great work” – there is no cure for death.
Still, you can’t stop progress – onwards and upwards! Funny that they turned this dark tale into an Oprah HBO special about the wonders of “diversity”!
This whole thing is so utterly absurd and alienating that it could come directly out of a J.G. Ballard short story collection.
The last words might be:
Not to speak ill of the dead, but Henrietta Lacks had a long clinical history of infection and treatment for various STDs – being serially infected by her philandering husband.
Henrietta Lacks’ immortal contribution to medicine were cells taken from her ultimately fatal cervical tumor – ultimately and undoubtedly attributable to infection from HPV virus by her her promiscuous and faithless husband.
So why have they so conspicuously omitted a portrait of Mr. Lacks? Without the Special Gift that He bestowed on Henrietta from on high, the HeLa cell line would not have been Born to Redeem the World from Cancer.
"But Henrietta kept all these things, and pondered them in her heart." [KJV]
So there should be a Slut Walk in their honor.
How 'bout it slut-girls? Show some slut pride for a change!
And all those "royalties" or whatever they are calling the absurd payoffs should not go to Henrietta's descendants, they should go to the descendants—if any—of those long-ago Baltimore hoochies.
I heard Ms. Skloots state this at a Chicago library years ago. Her aim at writing a book seemed to be get something for the family.
‘ An HBO film by Oprah Winfrey helped disemminate her story’.
Surely a Freudian slip?
Yes, and since Oprah helped out, it is labeled artificial disemmination. 8-)
I remember informing a woman on Twitter that they took her cells and she had nothing to do with any of the advancements as a result. She was so indignant she said she was instrumental and science would have been nothing without Henrietta.
Well, that she got right.
Now I remember where I first saw the phrase, “The Immortal Cells of Henrietta Lacks”! It was an article about all the experiments her cells had contaminated. This was back in high school, 89-90ish. But hey, we need feel good stories, not embarrassing facts.
I don’t find it too funny; it’s more like white people will always throw money and alms at black people in vain hopes of finding racial conciliation.
It's not her fault if the Megaphone and her grandchildren are exploiting her memory.
Untold numbers of anonymous people suffer considerable pain and die young. What good does it do to show empathy for someone long dead and about whom such silliness currently is being promoted?
This is very strange. There is a mysterious founders myth with almost supernatural aura – her cancer is immortal.
Decades ago I read Holy Blood, Holy Grail, the “non-fiction” book that was the inspiration for Dan Brown’s Davinci Code. Wonderful book but complete BS.
In HB, HG the central conceit is Jesus had a child with Mary Magdalene, the bloodline founded the Merovingian line and Jesus’ descendant is alive to and should be King of France – or something like that. They even had a picture of the man who should be King in the book.
In this case, her family is fighting to stay in a line and keep a gravy train going because of reasons. Dynastic fighting near the level of finding a new Ottoman Sultan.
Good find. Now this is drama.
They should have chosen the artist who painted the portraits of Obama and Michelle to do Henrietta’s portrait.
It is known that the Julio-Claudian Dynasty’s wealth came from royalties from the childbirth surgery and calenders.
http://discovermagazine.com/2014/nov/20-trial-and-error
“HeLa is also, unfortunately, the most common cell line contaminant, responsible for more than 20 percent of contaminated cell lines. This is not news: The first widespread HeLa contamination was identified in 1967, when geneticist Stanley Gartler of the University of Washington typed 18 different human cell lines. He found that every one was actually HeLa. The HeLa discovery was just the beginning. Work on contaminated esophageal cancer lines has led to more than 100 scientific publications, 11 patents, three NIH research grants and ongoing clinical trials involving cancer patients. The cell lines were actually lung, colon and stomach cancers.”
Management Summary – a lot of the “cell lines” that are used by cancer and virus researchers aren’t what it says on the label. Billions spent on research, billions donated by governments and charities, wasted.
“Across different fields of cancer research, up to a third of all cell lines have been identified as imposters. Yet this fact is widely ignored, and the lines continue to be used under their false identities. As recently as 2013, one of Ain’s contaminated lines was used in a paper on thyroid cancer published in the journal Oncogene. “There are about 10,000 citations every year on false lines — new publications that refer to or rely on papers based on imposter (human cancer) cell lines,” says geneticist Christopher Korch, former director of the University of Colorado’s DNA Sequencing Analysis & Core Facility. “It’s like a huge pyramid of toothpicks precariously and deceptively held together.””
I must say John Maddox of Nature sounds a piece of work.
“Exposing contaminated cell lines cost Walter Nelson-Rees his career. He was an expert in culturing human and animal cells at the University of California, Berkeley, and ran a cell line bank in Oakland. From 1975 to 1981, he published a series of articles in Science outing contaminated lines and naming the laboratories where they had originated. His angry colleagues called his publications a “hit list.” In an editorial, Nature’s editor-in-chief, John Maddox, railed against “self-appointed vigilantes.””
Did he then apologise, or had he been replaced?
“In April 2013, Nature published more stringent requirements, in which every author had to report the source of a study’s cell lines and whether the lines had been verified recently. ”
Hmmm … Henrietta was a guy in the Law & Order episode that covered this.
Agreed. BTW, I’ve never heard of this person. And she does look white in that portrait.
It's not her fault if the Megaphone and her grandchildren are exploiting her memory.
White Knight alert.
Boom!
Coming soon to Heartiste’s Shiv of the Week.
Silly rabbit*, the knockout game is for kids**.
* white guy
** black kids (or, as wikipedia says, “teens”)
Much like the battles within MLKJ’s family. All the new saints will have their various camps.
And Kadir should have done Barack’s portrait instead of Kehinde.
This has happened to people white and black. Some guy in Northern California had his pancreas cells harvested and two doctors made a killing on some diabetes drug the derived from them.
I thought this would turn into The Great White Defendant by now, but the Journos haven’t asked Trump about it yet. They must be really distracted by some other narrative.
They should make a HeLa Monster movie
Steve you nail this one… this is definitely religious craziness from the diversity cult.
There are many useful cell lines in biotechnology, some far more useful than HeLa. 293 cells and their derivatives are the standard for manufacturing viral vectors and doing many kinds of protein production. Probably billions of dollars worth of profits per year flow from production that requires these cells. Yet I have not heard a peep about de-anonymizing the Dutch family whose aborted fetus was used as the source of this cell line in 1973 and showering them with praise and lucrative film deals. One imagines that for them informed consent did not spell out the massive impact the cell line would have either.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/HEK_293_cells
That’s what I was thinking: it adds another layer of aburdity, if the cancer came from an STD acquired by promiscuity. Maybe, they should be painting portraits of the man (presumably black) who gave her the clap, or perhaps figuring out who did it is too difficult, so they have to stick with her.
I always thought the people seeking royalties from MLK’s speech were pathetic. This one tops that.
Sort of like the movie ‘Hidden Figures’ where if there’s a black anywhere within a mile of some notable accomplishment, even if only pushing a broom, they’re given credit for everything. Couldn’t have done it without them. This person did not do anything whatsoever and furthermore probably had zero understanding of the science involved. What are the names of the doctors and researchers? Where’s the books and movies about them? The shabby, grasping behavior of her supposed family reminds one of the greedy MLK family. Get paid without doing a thing for it, nice job if you can get it. It should have been kept anonymous to avoid cult-think ‘died for you’ idiocy from emerging but one can’t foresee this sort of thing.
Does anyone know of a way I could find out if my cells also have vast reservoirs of virtue locked up inside themselves?
If you white, it just ain't right.
An aggressive form of cervical cancer you say? In that case we may never know who the baby daddies really are.
If you read the book you’ll see that it was her husband who was promiscuous. She likely got an STD from him. He was not nice.
I laughed but then realized the answer is “Soon”.
Henrietta Lacks' immortal contribution to medicine were cells taken from her ultimately fatal cervical tumor - ultimately and undoubtedly attributable to infection from HPV virus by her her promiscuous and faithless husband.
So Henrietta Lacks is not the True Saint. Her philandering husband was. It was He, by His spermatic gifts to Henrietta, that created the HeLa cell line. They merely harvested the cells from Henrietta that He blessedly created.
So why have they so conspicuously omitted a portrait of Mr. Lacks? Without the Special Gift that He bestowed on Henrietta from on high, the HeLa cell line would not have been Born to Redeem the World from Cancer.
“But Henrietta kept all these things, and pondered them in her heart.” [KJV]
Henrietta Lacks' immortal contribution to medicine were cells taken from her ultimately fatal cervical tumor - ultimately and undoubtedly attributable to infection from HPV virus by her her promiscuous and faithless husband.
So really, the cells didn’t come from Henrietta, they came from her husband and the skanks he fandangoed with.
So there should be a Slut Walk in their honor.
How ’bout it slut-girls? Show some slut pride for a change!
And all those “royalties” or whatever they are calling the absurd payoffs should not go to Henrietta’s descendants, they should go to the descendants—if any—of those long-ago Baltimore hoochies.
And it's a good thing they told people she was black, because you couldn't tell from her picture.
Also it's not clear to me why this is supposedly to be a civil rights issue. It's not like Big Cancer Research was paying white people royalties for their cell samples that she didn't get in on.
There’s a whole industry now ( conducted by mostly women painters) devoted to imaginary portraits of St. Henrietta against a colorful background. Is it supposed to be in the style of a Byzantine portrait? Frida Kahlo? I dunno but it’s creepy. Most of them are derived from old B&W photos of her. There are only a couple of photos so they all look the same.
Etc.
https://news.artnet.com/art-world/barack-obama-portrait-kehinde-wiley-1222910
What would have happened if the cell line came from the lung tumor of an old racist white guy, say someone who looked like James Watson? This whole cult would not exist. No book, no movie, no cult, nothing. Old racist white guys already have enough credit for medical innovation and there’s no market for more.
Come to think of it why aren't the people who currently agree to be organ donors more virtuous than St. Henrietta. They are trying to help people. But she didn't even know she was doing anything and wasn't inconvenienced or harmed by the sampling.
The whole veneration of this woman is odd.
Maybe she had an interesting life in some other way. But the random fact that she had a tissue sample taken seems, by itself, to have zero dramatic potential.
The cell line was always named HeLa although no one knew what it stood for.
I read the original book about Henrietta Lacks, “A Conspiracy of Cells,” when it came out. It was simply an engrossing story that had no “racial” angle despite the woman being black (of course, the backstory of the promiscuous husband, as mentioned by another commenter, wasn’t part of the tale). Many years later, a co-worker was reading an updated version of the book. I glanced at the back-cover blurbs and was puzzled to read that it was a story about “racism.” I said, “This story has nothing to do with racism!” My friend (a liberal) nodded gravely and said, “Yes it does…”
Henrietta Lacks' immortal contribution to medicine were cells taken from her ultimately fatal cervical tumor - ultimately and undoubtedly attributable to infection from HPV virus by her her promiscuous and faithless husband.
“fatal cervical tumor – ultimately and undoubtedly attributable to infection from HPV virus by her her promiscuous and faithless husband.”
I heard Ms. Skloots state this at a Chicago library years ago. Her aim at writing a book seemed to be get something for the family.
Etc.
Those paintings are done in a style similar to that of the artist who created Obama’s hideous presidential portrait.
https://news.artnet.com/art-world/barack-obama-portrait-kehinde-wiley-1222910
Surely a Freudian slip?
>Winfrey helped disemminate.
Yes, and since Oprah helped out, it is labeled artificial disemmination. 😎
Consider the case of the nation of Ecuador, which allows the whole world to use the equator, free of charge.
“Neither did she because her cells were harvested without her consent.”
Rape via biopsy!
I’m curious as to why this seems to be an exclusively black phenomenon. Black women were really the scientists behind nasa putting people into space. Black physicists are the greatest of our time, which is why Neil de grasses Tyson should be the host of science shows.
Why not Mexican? Is it just impossible to concoct a narrative where Mexicans were really the scientists who invented the lightbulb? Does Hollywood not care yet? Is it Mexicans themselves who are unlikely to spin stories of Mexicans as the greatest ever at eveything? How much of the constant elevation of blacks comes from black egomania, and how much comes from establishment agendas?
Right?
The rotten, white-privileged ingrates of this corrupt, criminal nation are still benefiting from the uncompensated appropriation of Black lab-culture. Henny Lacks, Mother of Oncology! She died for Amerikkka! Swing low, sweet Harriet . . .
“A Conspiracy of Cells” , written by a man back in the dark days of 1985, takes a completely different tack from Rebecca Skloot’s “Immortal Life” book. Rather than St. Henrietta bringing us an immortal gift, her cell line is a source of “contamination”. Errant HeLa cells spread like a cancer (they ARE cancer), contaminating and overwhelming other cell cultures, sabotaging research projects, and eluding detection until they infiltrate scientific laboratories worldwide.
The original book has 6 Amazon reviews. “Immortal Life” has almost 18,000.
Thank you for posting this, I’ve had a very very rough week and this video brightened my day immeasurably.
Etc.
Someone should paint a picture of her biopsied cancer cells. They are the real heroes of the story.
Holy cow. Every day i hear about stuff that sounds like Onion style parody … but it’s real.
What the hell happened to Western Civilization?
It turned into Clown World. And it's still turning, into Fantasyland.
Modern medicine was built on the non-consensual (by the dead people, that is) use of cadavers. Why aren’t these thousands of (mostly) white cadaver-donors eligible for sainthood as well.
Come to think of it why aren’t the people who currently agree to be organ donors more virtuous than St. Henrietta. They are trying to help people. But she didn’t even know she was doing anything and wasn’t inconvenienced or harmed by the sampling.
The whole veneration of this woman is odd.
Maybe she had an interesting life in some other way. But the random fact that she had a tissue sample taken seems, by itself, to have zero dramatic potential.
Surprised she wasn’t a daily Google Doodle first
Or Henrietta Lacks may have been a chaste wife with an infected husband. But promiscuity is implicated somewhere along the infectious chain.
Pardon me if I snicker.
What the hell happened to Western Civilization?
“What ever happened to Western Civilization?”
It turned into Clown World. And it’s still turning, into Fantasyland.
I can’t believe I am asking this, but why uncircumcised? What does it have to do with HPV?
My guess: those who claim that it's all about 'hygiene', have a culture that originated in places where personal hygiene is sufficiently lax that male children are not taught "to wash their cocks". (Jokes aside: migrants from the Pale to Western Europe often brought typhus with them, due to rampant lice infections).
The calculating, opportunistic family members, making careers off of a DNA connection, are not too impressive, especially when you consider that, after the great grandchildren, DNA dynasties start disappearing into the rearvuew mirror, with descendants after the great grandchildren sharing only single digits of any celebrated relative’s DNA. At that point, the non-blood relatives aren’t that much less connected than the blood relatives, whereas parents share 50% of their kids’ DNA, with grandparents sharing 25% of their grandchildren’s DNA.
The thing that is impressive is the painter. Why oh why was Nelson not chosen to do the Obama portrait, which will reside in the National Gallery for eons? Obama’s chosen portraitist used the honor as a way to make a juvenile political statement, incorporating sperm motifs into a formal presidential portrait, featuring the POTUS sitting in a fancy, period-style chair, juxtaposed with a flat jungle backdrop with no cast shadows.
Without cast shadows, the figure appears to float in front of the jungle foliage backdrop, suggesting that white people can only see a Black president in a jungle setting, even though more white voters than Black voters turned out to put Obama in the White House twice. At least, Michelle’s portait had striking visual ideas while being respectful of the office.
But neither one of those artists is as technically and formally skilled as Kadir Nelson, who is a fabulously accomplished painter and just as skilled at sculpture, assumimg this is his sculptural work interspersed with illustrations for major magazines.
Look at his “School Days” magazine cover.
http://www.kadirnelson.com/gallery
The depth of that architectural background contrasts with his equally effective, flat, stylized, patterned background in the “Mother of Modern Medicine.” Many of his illusionistic backgrounds are more than just accurate in an illustrational sense: they are strong formal designs in and of themselves.
He has it all: top-flight technical skills, stand-out compositional skills and other formal mastery, including the ability to deploy a full tonal range in complex, multifigural compositions. That is hard: generating convincing light patterns across multi figures, integrating all of those figures with the background.
Most artists don’t pull it off. When they are linear painters, like Nelson, their edges are often too hard, making the figures look cut out and pasted on. Nelson is able to use the classical Ingres approach without creating stiff figures or overly stylized figures. He is an excellent colorist, too, and that adds another layer of mastery.
Obama had to have a Black painter because….racism, so why didn’t he choose the best Black painter?
You're joking, right? That crap would barely pass muster as just acceptably competent for some somewhat-talented random non-idiot White kid in a decent high-school sophomore Arts class in a reasonable, private non-Diverse high school.
Ask me how I know.
I'm ready to throw up.
At least we now have a working definition of accomplishment in the Black community … brought to you by the same SJWs who sacralize their way of life. Accomplishments (didn’t you know) are accidental in the White community and they are equally accidental in the Black community.
Life is a game of chance; it’s fate; it’s spiritual forces over which we have no control. That’s why the “gibsmedats” magically appear one day and are gone the next. Sometimes lucky … sometimes not. It’s like winning the lottery.
Henrietta Lacks’ relatives are only presenting their winning ticket. It’s called, “Playing the Black card.”
>instrumental
Well, that she got right.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/d/d7/Henrietta_Lacks_%281920-1951%29.jpg
"Whitewashing" the Mother of Modern Medicine? How dare they!
Does she really look like a “Black tobacco” farmer? And where was she from? And how many black tobacco farmers were there? Is tobacco a cross-over from cotton?
Are we supposed to love smoking now? A tobacco farmer should be right up there with slavery for hate. Now if she were a marijuana farmer that would be different.
It turned into Clown World. And it's still turning, into Fantasyland.
We’ll be the Greeks to the Chinese Romans, and part of that territory is crackpot beliefs.
https://www.webmd.com/cancer/cervical-cancer/news/20110106/male-circumcision-cuts-womens-cervical-cancer-risk#1
2017 study from The Lancet: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/langlo/article/PIIS2214-109X(17)30386-8/fulltext
This is a really important issue. Just whang away at it please.
Simple, silly – the cock-mutilators don’t want their cult’s propitiary ritual tarnished by the obvious comparison with female genital mutilation, so it is vital that circumcision advocacy is undertaken at every available opportunity.
My guess: those who claim that it’s all about ‘hygiene’, have a culture that originated in places where personal hygiene is sufficiently lax that male children are not taught “to wash their cocks“. (Jokes aside: migrants from the Pale to Western Europe often brought typhus with them, due to rampant lice infections).
I don’t see that he was in any kind of danger.
Me neither.
I just think he was annoyed to his breaking point. He seemed like he was waiting for a car to pick him up or something and this group was surrounding and taunting him. I have no idea why, or what was going on.
The punch may have been like a reflex action when she put her “dukes up.” He actually had pretty good form on his left jab. Maybe he used to box or something.
And just to be clear: I don’t approve of hitting little girls.
Right?
Or these guys:
https://science.howstuffworks.com/innovation/everyday-innovations/lab-grown-skin2.htm
Who knew that cancer cells did cancer and polio research and gene mapping? Will her cancer cells be awarded the Nobel in medicine? African female cells are so powerful, they should be treated as queens. BTW, I’ve known smart black women (and men) who would roll their eyes at this nonsense.
A “fabulously accomplished painter?”
You’re joking, right? That crap would barely pass muster as just acceptably competent for some somewhat-talented random non-idiot White kid in a decent high-school sophomore Arts class in a reasonable, private non-Diverse high school.
Ask me how I know.
So a black woman with cervical cancer, possibly the result of acquiring HPV, is beatified instead of the tens of thousands of white medical researchers who through the years saved or prolonged the lives of millions. Yep, makes sense to me (In a bizarro liberal sort of way)!
rosalind franklin has a better case than all these coincidental, bystander level africans the media keeps dredging up. and she doesn’t have a good case.
africans built the white house. harriet tubman was the central figure of the civil war. little old ladies in the backroom at NASA actually got us to the moon.
might as well go all the way. george washington carver built a computer out of a peanut.
reminds me of stuff like how hepatitis C was recently cured, and nobody has the slightest interest in michael sofia, the guy most directly responsible.
i note that jonas salk never suffers similar treatment to previous key researchers, and gets referenced often in modern times, instead of memory holed. i wonder why…
And it's a good thing they told people she was black, because you couldn't tell from her picture.
Also it's not clear to me why this is supposedly to be a civil rights issue. It's not like Big Cancer Research was paying white people royalties for their cell samples that she didn't get in on.
In the above low-resolution hagiographic image of St. Henrietta, I thought the “halo” might have just been a chance juxtaposition with the pattern on the wall in back, as in
But in the high-resolution version
we see that the halo is actually a straw hat.
But wait. What is holding the hat to her head, at an 80-degree angle from the horizontal? Some miraculous force? Maybe it really *is* a halo — the HeLa halo.
“I don’t see that he was in any kind of danger.”
But you and I have the benefit of hindsight and we are third party observers, which gives us a different, privileged perspective.
In reality, you know as well as I, that as an off-the-leash dog is running towards you and the owner is yelling “Buffy, come back!” and reassuring you with “He’s a good dog” you are taking up a defensive posture and fumbling for your pepper spray. It’s instinctual.
She was moving aggressively directly towards him. He had just been hit from behind by another member of the gang. Such stressful situations do not put the brain in a cool, processing mode. Remember, he was also protecting his middle aged wife from what he rightfully perceived to be a gang of young hoodlums. You would have done the same if your wife or daughter had been at your side (hopefully).
And finally, all of us, meaning we adults, who, having seen too-numerous-to-count knockout videos in which the perpetrators were “teens” of fourteen or so, should know well enough by now to take any attack by a black youth seriously.
Remember your sociobiology. Young women mature a year and a half earlier than boys and blacks earlier than whites. A teenaged black “girl” can pack a wallop that would kill an elderly person.
So by the reasoning of the people behind this farcical shake down, my descendants should be entitled to royalties from the earnings of any future recipients of an organ from my lifeless body because I checked the organ donor box on my drivers license application?
So long as it’s a cow and not a bull, sure. Just not one of those Holsteins. Well known as the Nazis of the bovine world. And the Charolais–total collaborators.
Yes. Simply look in a mirror.
If you white, it just ain’t right.
Was it Ike Turner?
ALL stories are about racism.
Because he’s white, that’s why. Same reason why he’s going to prison. Reverse the races and the story would never even make the news, but then if you reverse the races the harassment would never have happened in the first place.