Henrietta Lacks: The Unwitting Mother of Modern Medicine

Henrietta Lacks was a young mother whose premature death by cancer changed the world forever. We explore the complex legacy of the woman who left behind immortal cells that fueled decades of scientific breakthroughs.

​From the development of the polio vaccine to gene mapping, Henrietta’s cells have saved millions of lives—yet her story is also one of deep racial injustice in 1951 America. We dive into the medical ethics of the era, the critical importance of medical consent, and the ongoing conversation surrounding bodily autonomy.

​Join us as we pay tribute to the "Mother of Modern Medicine" and uncover how one woman’s unwitting contribution became the bedrock of contemporary science.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:07

Honourable Mentions. Hello, listener. Welcome back to another exciting edition of Tony Honourable Mentions. I'm here with my real life brother from exactly the same other. Hello, Neil. Hello, Stephen. How are you, please? I'm good, thank you very much. Today, Neil. Still there. Hello, Neil. Hello. Today we're off to nineteen fifty-one.

SPEAKER_02 0:35

Nineteen fifty one. Nine minutes to eight. You were born then, weren't you?

SPEAKER_03 0:39

Nine minutes to eight, I was. 1951, if you're talking the year.

SPEAKER_01 0:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 0:44

Then no.

SPEAKER_01 0:45

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 0:46

I was quite a way off being born then, actually.

SPEAKER_01 0:48

Fair enough.

SPEAKER_03 0:49

Same way as as you were. You were quite a way off being born as well. I wouldn't be so rude to suggest otherwise, but obviously you don't care. We're going to 1951 and we're going to Baltimore in Maryland, the United States.

SPEAKER_02 1:04

Cookies. They make nice cookies there.

SPEAKER_03 1:06

Maryland Cookies.

SPEAKER_02 1:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:08

They do, if anyone's listening from Maryland Cookies and they want to send any samples for testing, or we could discuss even with greater detail on one of our podcasts, then yeah, please do. We're not proud. Send them along. So we're going to the John Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland. Yeah. Which is one of the few that would treat poor African Americans at that time.

SPEAKER_02 1:33

That was terrible, isn't it? It's terrible, isn't it, wasn't it? Wasn't it bad?

SPEAKER_03 1:37

Oh, wasn't it bad? Yes, it was uh Jim Crow. Jim Crow laws, that's what they called it.

SPEAKER_02 1:43

Did they?

SPEAKER_03 1:44

Yes, when they separated your your white people from your black people.

SPEAKER_02 1:47

John Hopkins, was he black or tall or was he white?

SPEAKER_03 1:50

I don't know, just the John Hopkins Hospital.

SPEAKER_02 1:53

He's a nice fella.

SPEAKER_03 1:54

I don't think he was actually there working. I think it was named after him.

SPEAKER_02 1:58

Well, he must have been there at some point in his life.

SPEAKER_03 2:00

You'd imagine he was doing something in that area together. That's a bit all named after him.

SPEAKER_02 2:04

Exactly.

SPEAKER_03 2:05

Yeah, so he did all right.

SPEAKER_02 2:08

I don't know.

SPEAKER_03 2:09

Asking about on a podcast. Yeah. Do you know uh why the Jim Crow laws were called the Jim Crow laws?

SPEAKER_02 2:17

Because a man called Jim Crow made them?

SPEAKER_03 2:19

No. You'd think that, wouldn't you? But apparently it was because there was a very popular vaudeville character who was a white man in blackface, dressed up and then being dericked and not really understanding things, playing the part of a yokel type black man to make all the white people laugh because black people weren't allowed in there. His name was Jim Crow. And it wasn't a single person, it was like an act that anyone doing this kind of act would call their character Jim Crow. And that's where that came from.

SPEAKER_02 2:52

There you go.

SPEAKER_03 2:53

It did have its basis in your racism.

SPEAKER_02 2:55

Is that why they call Galaxy Minstrels?

SPEAKER_03 2:57

Galaxy minstrels?

SPEAKER_02 2:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 2:59

No, I imagine that's probably more to do with minstrels, the original meaning of minstrels, which were wandering musical players. Although what that relates to a chocolate that melts in your mouth and not in your hand at the moment.

SPEAKER_02 3:11

Exactly, yeah. But I'd like to have a look at that. So if if galaxy are out there, they'd like to do minstrels. I'd be very happy to try it out. I will I would quite happily hold one for several hours in my hand.

SPEAKER_03 3:22

And see what happens.

SPEAKER_02 3:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 3:24

Yeah. Yeah. Similar to a Lamborghini, I find Neil. They're very good cars.

SPEAKER_02 3:31

Yeah, but are they what they're cracked up to be? So it'd be nice to sort of try one out, wouldn't it?

SPEAKER_03 3:35

It'll be nice to try out a Lamborghini if anyone wants the same one and we can then report on the podcast how we found the Lamborghini was to drive. And perhaps we could even try it whilst driving, whilst eating a Galaxy Minstrel.

SPEAKER_02 3:47

Yeah. But I think the roads over here aren't good enough, so if anybody wants to send us to Australia or someone like that to try it out, then obviously That's a good point.

SPEAKER_03 3:55

You need a wide open road, wouldn't you?

SPEAKER_02 3:57

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 3:58

If anyone from Thomas Cook is listening, then yeah. And anyone from most shipping lines who'd need to ship the aforementioned vehicle. We'll we we'll be happy to give you give you a spot on the book. Give you a little mention there, honourable mentions.

SPEAKER_02 4:13

Yeah. You can have an you can have an honourable mention.

SPEAKER_03 4:16

Or it could we could call it a uh commercial mentions.

SPEAKER_02 4:20

Yes. Just for that particular episode.

SPEAKER_03 4:23

Anyway, on with today's tale. Enough of this frippery, enough of this gay banter. So we're in 1951, the John Hopkins Hospital of Baltimore in Maryland, where they make delicious cookies in the US of A. On January the twenty-ninth, a thirty-one-year-old mother of five walked in to complain of feeling a knot in her whom.

SPEAKER_01 4:48

A knot in her whom?

SPEAKER_03 4:50

In a whom. Renowned gynecologist, Dr. Howard Jones.

SPEAKER_02 4:58

That was he he made some good music as well in the eighties, didn't he?

SPEAKER_03 5:01

Yes. He immediately put down his synthesizer.

SPEAKER_02 5:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 5:04

He was doing groundbreaking work to look into uh what is love anyway at that point. Yeah. One for the eighties kids.

SPEAKER_02 5:12

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 5:13

If you don't recognise that or don't realize what's going on.

SPEAKER_02 5:15

Turn down that mantle chain, he said. Let's have a look at this.

SPEAKER_03 5:19

Yeah. Let's have a look at this pearl in the shell. Howard Jones examined his patient, and he had spiky hair.

SPEAKER_01 5:26

Probably. Probably.

SPEAKER_03 5:28

Discovering a large malignant tumour on her cervix as he did, which is never good news.

SPEAKER_01 5:34

No.

SPEAKER_03 5:37

By October the fourth, she would be dead. Wow. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the end of today's podcast.

SPEAKER_02 5:45

That's very good. And then who deserves the honourable mention in this one, please?

SPEAKER_03 5:49

Very brief story, isn't it? But medical science would be about to leap forward by light years now. We're getting to the meat of it. Loretta Pleasant was born on the first of August 1920 in Roanoke, Virginia, the daughter of Eliza and Johnny Randall Pleasant.

SPEAKER_02 6:12

Oh, that's pleasant story, Stephen.

SPEAKER_03 6:15

Oh, that's what you did. That's a pleasant story about the Pleasants, isn't it?

SPEAKER_02 6:19

Yes, it is, yes.

SPEAKER_03 6:20

Isn't Roanoke legendary in America? Isn't it a place where some people went to settle? And when they went to check on them, they found that the entire population of the place had vanished.

SPEAKER_02 6:31

No idea. I just know about the Blue Ridge Mountains.

SPEAKER_03 6:34

Of Virginia.

SPEAKER_02 6:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 6:36

On the trail of the Lonesome Pine.

SPEAKER_02 6:38

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 6:39

And how'd you know about that?

SPEAKER_02 6:40

Uh Lauren Hardy, please.

SPEAKER_03 6:42

Lauren Hardy, please, yes. And if you haven't seen that listener, check it out on your YouTube. Very funny. Even to say hundred years old, but still very funny.

SPEAKER_02 6:49

They're still cracking. They're brilliant.

SPEAKER_03 6:51

I say she was the daughter of Eliza and Johnny Randall, but she was actually one of ten children.

SPEAKER_02 6:59

Ow. So there was no TV back then.

SPEAKER_03 7:02

Well, there's no TV, or there must have been something in the air, which is probably a mum's legs. But yes, there was something in the air, wasn't there? Ten children.

SPEAKER_01 7:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 7:12

Sadly, Eliza Pleasant died just four years after Loretta was born while giving birth to their tenth child.

SPEAKER_02 7:21

Hmm. There you go. It's back on you, that one, isn't it?

SPEAKER_03 7:24

Back on me, that'll feel bad now. Johnny could not look after nine children and a newborn all by himself.

SPEAKER_01 7:30

No.

SPEAKER_03 7:31

So he moved everyone to Clover in Virginia to be closer to the extended family, and the kids were scattered among their relatives to be cared for.

SPEAKER_02 7:40

Did they say to him, Johnny? Don't worry, won't you come on home? Why? I don't know.

SPEAKER_03 7:48

Okay. Yeah, so I mean it's sensible, isn't it? Johnny, he couldn't he knew he couldn't look after nine children and the newborn and bring in the money that's required. So rather than abandon them or whatever, he he distributed them once the family where he knew they'd be taken care of.

SPEAKER_01 8:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 8:04

Loretta ended up with her maternal grandfather, who was a mixed race gentleman named Tommy Lacks.

SPEAKER_02 8:13

Tommy Lacks. That's a good name.

SPEAKER_03 8:16

A tobacco farmer living in a log cabin that was once the slave quarters on the plantation of his white father.

SPEAKER_01 8:24

Mm.

SPEAKER_03 8:25

It had four rooms, gas lanterns, and no running water. So a bit like a travel lodge.

SPEAKER_02 8:32

Yeah. Bit like saying one of them, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 8:35

Yeah. It's now lost to history. But at some point and for some reason the little girl stopped going by Loretta Pleasant and became known as Henrietta Lacks. Known to all as Henny.

SPEAKER_02 8:49

Hennylax. Hennylax. Sounds like somebody you'd take for constipation.

SPEAKER_03 8:54

I suppose it does got hennylax dips. From an early age she helped work around her grandfather's farm. She fed the animals.

SPEAKER_01 9:04

Nice.

SPEAKER_03 9:06

Tended the garden.

SPEAKER_01 9:08

Lovely.

SPEAKER_03 9:09

And toiled in the tobacco fields.

SPEAKER_02 9:12

Ooh, toiled.

SPEAKER_03 9:13

In the tobacco fields, because I've already used fed and tended.

SPEAKER_02 9:17

Yeah, I don't want to say again, do you?

SPEAKER_03 9:20

In between all that, Henrietta went to a school for black children walking two miles or three kilometres there and back every day.

SPEAKER_02 9:30

Every day? What even weekends?

SPEAKER_03 9:32

Until sixth grade, when she was eleventh or eleven or twelve years old. So I'd imagine she had weekends off Neil because she they needed some time to do all this farming.

SPEAKER_02 9:41

To tour in the tobacco fields.

SPEAKER_03 9:46

Between the ages eleven and twelve, she dropped out to help support the family. Sometimes that means dropped out of school rather than dropped out of a on a plane or something. So when she first arrived at the cabin, old Tommy Lax's cabin, Henny shared a room with a then nine-year-old first cousin named David Lacks. Who everyone called day.

SPEAKER_01 10:10

Daylax.

SPEAKER_03 10:12

That sounds like your your daytime.

SPEAKER_02 10:15

Yeah, someone she have in the morning. I did daylax this morning.

SPEAKER_03 10:19

You go into the chemists, excuse me, you got henny lax. Yes, we've got daylax. Oh, anything to stop me the bed. Old Day, or young Day, nine-year-old Day, his mother had abandoned him, and his father was someone who'd just been passing through town. So you didn't really know who his father was, then his mother just left him there. Ran off. At the age of fourteen, Henny gave birth to a boy, she named Lawrence, and then four years later in nineteen thirty-nine, a daughter called Elsie. Both children were fathered by Day Lax. On the 10th of April 1941, Day and Henelax were married in Halifax County, Virginia. So they were first cousins. She was pregnant by the time she was 14 or gave birth at 14. And then another time when she was 18. And how old was she been in 1941, please, Neil? Do your mathematics.

SPEAKER_02 11:23

Twenty-one.

SPEAKER_03 11:24

About twenty-one. Sort of going with her. I can't remember when she was born.

SPEAKER_02 11:28

1920.

SPEAKER_03 11:29

Oh there we go then. That was quite an easy bit of mathematics, while I don't. As an adult, Henny had attractive hazel coloured eyes.

SPEAKER_01 11:37

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_03 11:37

A small waist and size six shoes, which is UK size four. It's quite petite. Yeah. Unless you go by EU shoe sizes when she'd have been a whopping sound in 37. What do I do? Why can't they just universally change them?

SPEAKER_02 11:56

They've got to put their own stamp on things, haven't they?

SPEAKER_03 11:59

So in America she was a what do I say she was in America? I don't blow you all paying attention. In America she was a six. In the UK she was a four. And with our continental cousin, she'd have been a thirty-seven.

SPEAKER_02 12:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 12:18

It is a bit confusing. Depending where you go to buy your shoes, doesn't it? Yeah. When she wasn't working on the farm, Henny always wore red nail polish and dressed smartly in neatly pleated skirts. Oh, okay. A bit like yourself, Neil. You like a neatly pleated skirt.

SPEAKER_02 12:36

Yeah, and the weekend.

SPEAKER_03 12:37

After their 1941 wedding, sorry about 20 to 8, one of Henny and Day's cousins, a man named Fred Garrett, convinced him.

SPEAKER_02 12:46

He was in Roadhouse.

SPEAKER_03 12:48

Was he?

SPEAKER_02 12:49

Yeah, I think so. Anyway, carry on.

SPEAKER_03 12:51

He had a cousin, Pat.

SPEAKER_02 12:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 12:53

Who is a friend of Billy the Kid.

SPEAKER_01 12:55

Hmm.

SPEAKER_03 12:56

Fred Garrett convinced him to leave the tobacco farm and move to a place called Turner Station in Baltimore County.

unknown 13:03

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 13:04

One of the oldest and largest African American communities in that county. Hmm.

SPEAKER_02 13:10

Made sense, then didn't it?

SPEAKER_03 13:12

Well, not only that, but because America's entry into the Second World War caused a boom in the need for steel production. And Bethlehem Steel was on its way to becoming the largest steel plant in the world.

SPEAKER_02 13:26

Bethlehem Steel.

SPEAKER_03 13:27

And Bethlehem Steel just so happened to be in Turner Station. So not only would it make sense that they were moving into a long-established community of African Americans, but they're also moving to the largest steel plant in the world, offering out jobs because they can't get enough people to deal with the demand for their products.

SPEAKER_02 13:50

See, I'd if I could change my name, I think I'd change all my name to Bethlehem Steel. Sounds good, doesn't it?

SPEAKER_01 13:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 13:57

Sounds quite Bethlehem Steel.

SPEAKER_03 14:01

Yeah, yeah. Would you be? Would you be a secret agent?

SPEAKER_02 14:05

Probably. Either that or I'll invent a a better carrier bag.

SPEAKER_03 14:08

How would you invent a better carrier bag?

SPEAKER_02 14:10

I don't know, you might have not looked into it, but that's that would be something I'd be trying to do.

SPEAKER_03 14:13

You wouldn't go in uh like um, I don't know, underpants for sheep. It would be a better carrier bag.

SPEAKER_02 14:20

Yeah. Yeah. I could always install mirrors. It was always something I could see myself doing.

SPEAKER_03 14:31

I've got a job at the helium factory, but I left. I refused to be spoken to in that tone.

SPEAKER_01 14:37

Hey.

SPEAKER_03 14:38

Courtsy of Stuart Francis.

SPEAKER_01 14:39

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 14:40

I don't be accused of ripping him off, but that's a a joke that I've borrowed.

SPEAKER_01 14:44

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 14:45

So, anyways, right? We've got we've got our good friend here, Fred, Fred Garrett, who's offered them to come to live in Turner Station. Turner Steel Bethlehem Steel.

SPEAKER_02 14:56

Bethlehem Steel.

SPEAKER_03 14:59

Henny and Day like the sound of that, so they packed up and left for Maryland with Lawrence and Elsie in tow, who are of course their children.

SPEAKER_02 15:07

Put them in the car, surely, or on the horse. Can't just tow them along.

SPEAKER_03 15:11

Wasn't enough room in the car.

SPEAKER_02 15:12

Well no, but you're dragging them dragging them beyond the car. Well, dragging them beyond's a bit wrong, isn't it?

SPEAKER_03 15:17

Not long after they arrived, Fred Garrett was called up to fight in the war.

unknown 15:20

Oh.

SPEAKER_03 15:21

This would be a second world war.

SPEAKER_01 15:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 15:23

You heard of that?

SPEAKER_01 15:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 15:25

Before he left, Fred gifted his life savings to Day, and with that money, Day was able to purchase a house at 713 New Pittsburgh Avenue in Turner Station.

SPEAKER_01 15:38

That's nice of him.

SPEAKER_03 15:39

That was nice of him, wasn't it?

unknown 15:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 15:41

Whether he thought he ain't coming back.

SPEAKER_02 15:43

Yeah. Well, when he gets back, he says, Right, I want it back now.

SPEAKER_03 15:47

I'm I'm I'm back. I didn't think I was going to be doing that, but I'm back now.

unknown 15:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 15:51

Drill and they went over there in our previous episode, listener, go back and listen if you haven't already, but we discussed a chap called Albert Gunter, who's one of our favourites. We liked old Albert. And he went over to the continent there to fight the Second World War in his tank. Then he took on Mr. Hitler and he showed them good old British fighting spunk.

SPEAKER_02 16:12

Yes, he did.

SPEAKER_03 16:13

So do you think that Fred Garrett went over there from the American point of view and did the same?

SPEAKER_02 16:19

Sorry as Americans spunk over the Germans.

SPEAKER_03 16:22

I don't think the Americans as such did anything. I think it was John Wayne, wasn't it?

SPEAKER_02 16:26

Mostly, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 16:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 16:28

Yeah. And me Marvin.

SPEAKER_03 16:30

Yeah, John Wayne did it all on his own.

SPEAKER_02 16:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 16:33

From what I understand.

SPEAKER_02 16:34

Well they're gonna say in Chuck Norris, they'd have done it anyway, haven't he?

SPEAKER_03 16:38

Well there wouldn't have been a Second World War would there, if Chuck Norris had been around.

SPEAKER_02 16:41

Exactly.

SPEAKER_03 16:41

Then he just looked at them and they wouldn't have even bothered.

SPEAKER_02 16:45

No.

SPEAKER_03 16:46

In New Pittsburgh Avenue, Henrietta and Day Lux had three more children.

SPEAKER_02 16:52

So they had two and they got another three.

SPEAKER_03 16:54

Yeah, so if you work this out, Neil, take your time. How many children is there? Well done.

SPEAKER_01 17:01

Thank you.

SPEAKER_03 17:03

So they had three more children, David Lux Jr.

SPEAKER_01 17:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 17:07

Who was known as Sonny, Deborah, and Joseph. Joseph later became known as Zachariah Bari Abdul Rahman, or Rahman, after he converted to Islam. Okay. And he gave birth to Joseph at the Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore in November 1950, four and a half months before she was diagnosed with cervical cancer. In his mind, Joseph, who became Zachariah Bari Abdul Rahman, considered that his birth was a miracle because he was fighting off the cancer cells that were growing all around him.

SPEAKER_01 17:46

Yeah. It is a bit of a miracle.

SPEAKER_03 17:49

Yeah, nothing to do with his poor old mum. Hmm. Around the same time, Henny was giving birth to her youngest child. Her eldest daughter, Elsie, was placed in the hospital for the Negro Insane. Hospital for the Negro Insane. Later renamed to the better sounding Crownsville Hospital Centre. There you go, so they did think actually that sounds a bit spelled a bit wrong, isn't it? Sounds a bit crass.

SPEAKER_01 18:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 18:18

Elsie had been born with epilepsy and cerebral palsy and was deaf and moot at the same time. Tragically, she died in Crownsville in 1955 at the age of just fifteen.

SPEAKER_01 18:30

Hmm.

SPEAKER_03 18:32

That's a story, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01 18:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 18:34

I know it's horrible, but I wonder if that's anything to do with First Cousins.

unknown 18:39

Probably.

SPEAKER_03 18:39

Or whether it was just one of those things that she was just through the unlucky straw. Either way, Elsie didn't ask for it, and it's horrible.

SPEAKER_01 18:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 18:48

On January the twenty-ninth, nineteen fifty-one, Henny went to John Hopkins hospital because she found a knot in her womb. This is where we were at the start of the episode. At the top of the episode, that's what we have to say in Jobies.

SPEAKER_02 19:04

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 19:04

She had previously told her cousins about the knot, and they assumed correctly that she was pregnant. But after giving birth to Joseph, Henrietta had a severe hemorrhage. Her primary care doctor, uh William C. Wade, referred her back to John Hopkins. There, her doctor, Howard Jones. Yeah, what is love anyway? Put down his synth keyboard and diagnosed a malignant epidermo, I mean this episode is quite tough.

SPEAKER_02 19:37

Just crack on with it.

SPEAKER_03 19:38

Howard Jones put down his synth keyboard and diagnosed a malignant epidermoid cancarcinoma of the cervix.

SPEAKER_01 19:50

A growth.

SPEAKER_03 19:53

There, Dr. Howard Jones put down his synth keyboard and diagnosed a malignant epidermoid. Dermoid carcinoma of the cervix.

SPEAKER_01 20:04

Diagnosed growth.

SPEAKER_03 20:06

Diagnosed a malignant epidermoid carcinoma of the cervix. Epidermoid carcinoma. Epidermo.

SPEAKER_02 20:16

Epidermoid, yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 20:19

Yeah. He diagnosed a malignant epidoid epidermous now. He diagnosed a malignant. Imagine me being a doctor, you'd be dead. Don't give someone bad news like that, they're both cheers. You'd be dead. What you've been used to put it out it was. Oh, never mind, mate. Well, if you park your car, you've got that on the clock, have you? Yeah, I wouldn't worry about the parking ticket.

SPEAKER_02 20:48

So we keep receipts.

SPEAKER_03 20:50

Yeah. So he diagnosed that with a malignant epidermoid carcinoma of the cervix. A malignant epidermoid carcinoma of the cervix. I can say it. Howard Jones took a biopsy for lab testing, and Henney began undergoing treatment of radium tube inserts as an inpatient, and it was discharged a few days later with instructions to return for X-rays as a follow-up. Radium tube inserts on the cervix as well. She didn't guess why they were inserting those.

SPEAKER_02 21:33

Trying to.

SPEAKER_03 21:35

This was the best medical treatment available at the time. Meanwhile, a sample of the cancer cells taken during Dr. Jones' biopsy was sent to Dr. George Otto Guy. Dr. Guy was a prominent cancer and virus researcher and had been collecting cells for years for all patients who came to the hospital with cervical cancer, trying to grow them for research.

SPEAKER_01 22:00

Yeah, fair enough.

SPEAKER_03 22:01

But each sample quickly died in Dr. Guy's lab, so his observations and tests were always carried out soon after the arrival of fresh samples. He had to, didn't he? Yeah, yeah. However, he noticed something very strange in the cancer cells taken from Henny Lats, where other cells would die, hers doubled every twenty to twenty-four hours. A couple of cells became four, then they became eight, then sixteen, then thirty-two, then sixty-four, and so on and so on and so on and so on. Thank you. Sadly, at the same time, Henny's cancer was spreading throughout her body, but in Dr. Guy's lab, her cells showed no signs of slowing down. They were given the name HELA cells, H E dash L A. Taken from H E from Henny Reta and L A from Lax. Lax. Yeah. But no one had told Henny they were taking a biopsy or sought her permission. Although this is fairly standard procedure at the time because cells always died. So what was the point in telling the patient? Nevertheless, what Dr. Guy now had was astonishing. He began to freeze samples as the cells kept doubling and doubling. He spoke with colleagues who all wanted samples. For a century, physicians had tried to find a way of helping cells survive outside the human body, and Dr. Guy became something of a sensation, sending out batches of these immortal cells all around the world. On August 8th, 1951, Henney returned to the hospital demanding admission and was given a bed on what was called the coloured ward. Nothing to do with the painting of the walls.

SPEAKER_01 23:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 23:53

All to do with the patients that were allowed upon it. Even when you're on death door or you're seriously ill, you had to be segregated, wouldn't we?

SPEAKER_01 24:00

Ridiculous.

SPEAKER_02 24:04

Ridiculous.

SPEAKER_03 24:05

Exactly. Fortunately, she never left and died there at age 31 on October the 4th. Completely unaware that a few corridors away in the same hospital as cells were the source of a scientific miracle. That's sad, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01 24:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 24:23

Hennis cells were used to create the polio vaccine. They were taken on the earliest space missions to study the effect of zero gravity on the human body. IVF treatment for couples who are unable to conceive naturally was developed using healar cells. They've formed the basis of studies into the effects of toxins, drugs, hormones and viruses, as well as the growth of cancer cells and the development of effective treatments without experimenting on humans. They've also been used to test the effects of radiation and poisons, to study the human genome, to learn more about how viruses work, and henney's cells played a crucial role in the development of the COVID-19 vaccines and AIDS research and medications in the eighties. So they're still being used today, and they're still doubling and growing and still going now, still an egg. Henrietta Lax herself died in poverty and was buried in an unmarked grave.

SPEAKER_01 25:25

Alright.

SPEAKER_03 25:26

Her burial plot was in the family cemetery in a section of Clover, Virginia, called Lax Town. But the exact spot is unknown.

SPEAKER_01 25:35

That's sad.

SPEAKER_03 25:36

It's very sad, isn't it? I'll tell you what as well, I'm never gonna go to this place called Poverty.

SPEAKER_02 25:41

No.

SPEAKER_03 25:42

Because quite a few people seem to die there.

SPEAKER_02 25:44

Yeah, they do, yeah. It's like this bloke called Wobey. Who's that? Wobee Tide.

SPEAKER_03 25:53

Sounds like a right piece of work.

SPEAKER_02 25:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 25:56

Thank you for the warning. In 2010, a man called Roland Batillo, who had worked with George Guy and knew the Lux family, donated a headstone for Henny to replaced by the family believed to be her resting place. The Lux family also raised money for a headstone for Elsie, and the two were dedicated on the same day.

SPEAKER_01 26:18

That's nice.

SPEAKER_03 26:19

The book shaped headstone of Henrietta Lacks contains an epitaph written by the grandchildren she never knew. It reads In loving memory of a phenomenal woman, wife and mother who touched the lives of many. Here lies Henrietta Lax Brackett's healer.

SPEAKER_02 26:47

Wow.

SPEAKER_03 26:47

That's nice, isn't it? Because she didn't even know this this poor lady, something like that.

SPEAKER_02 26:50

Yeah, she didn't even know what she what she'd done for the world.

SPEAKER_03 26:53

No, she died without ever knowing.

SPEAKER_02 26:55

And no and people died without ever knowing who she was.

SPEAKER_03 26:59

Yeah, even now people won't know who she was and what she did. In March 2013, researchers published a DNA sequence of the genome of a strain of HELA cells.

SPEAKER_01 27:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 27:13

The Lax family, so this is in 2013. The Lax family only discovered this when they were informed by an author writing Henny's story by the name of a Rebecca Sklut. What a great name. Great name. Rebecca Sklut. So you're gonna be what's the name you're gonna take?

SPEAKER_02 27:32

Bethlehem Steele.

SPEAKER_03 27:34

You're gonna be Bethlehem Steele, and I'll be your Watson to your Bethlehem Steele as Stephen Sklut.

unknown 27:40

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 27:41

In fact, until Rebecca Sloot originally contacted them, the Lax Family didn't even know about healer cells and their connection to Henrietta.

SPEAKER_02 27:51

Wow.

SPEAKER_03 27:52

2013 nil.

SPEAKER_02 27:53

Oh. Long time, isn't it?

SPEAKER_03 27:55

Once they became wholly aware, the Lax Family objected about the amount of genetic information that was available for public access. Jerry Lax Y, which sounds like a question, but let's see, um that's one of Henry's grandchildren.

SPEAKER_01 28:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 28:11

Jerry Lax Y told the New York Times the biggest concern was privacy. What information was actually going to be out there about our grandmother and what information they can obtain from her sequencing that will tell them about her children and grandchildren and then continuing down our line. The same year, another group under the National Institutes of Health NIH funding in the USA submitted their own research for publication. Again, the family put their hands in the air and said, excuse me. In addition to that, an unprecedented arrangement was made whereby family members joined scientists to form the Gila Genome Committee. And that now examined applications and grants permission for access to Henrietta's cells. So as Jerry Lax Y put it, now instead of being the last, we are the first to know.

SPEAKER_01 29:05

Right.

SPEAKER_03 29:06

So they've taken all the cells, haven't they, for decades of Henny Lux, and were using them in all this medical science and treatment. The Lax family didn't even know anything about it until they were told how as how they felt and then how they felt about what, mate. And then they told them about it. And now they've been given a place on this committee, so you cannot use any of these cells without it first going through the Lux family. And in October 2021, the family filed a lawsuit against Thermo Fisher Scientific for profiting from the Healer cell line without Henny's initial or their subsequent consent. And on 31st of July 2023, Thermo Fisher Scientific settled with the Lux family on undisloaned terms. Deborah Henny's daughter. Deborah, Henny's daughter asked why, if her mother was so important to medicine, why could her children not afford health insurance?

SPEAKER_02 30:14

Yeah. I agree with that. They should have something from it.

SPEAKER_03 30:16

Of Henny's children and descendants, they all of course had a genetic connection, but the HELA cells are not in their bodies. So they've had that tested. And they do not have their own personal samples of the HELA cell line. So it was a complete one-off within Henrietta.

SPEAKER_01 30:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 30:35

And I I think that the family alright, it was standard procedure at the time.

SPEAKER_01 30:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 30:40

And I think that the family should have been made aware earlier than they were. And it was they were made aware by accident.

SPEAKER_01 30:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 30:50

With an innocent question from someone who was writing Henrietta's life story.

SPEAKER_01 30:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 30:55

Assuming that they knew. And then they got these multi dollar pharmaceutical scientific corporations making billions off the back of it. And there's these people sat there going, What? From my grandmother? What's going on? So yeah, I think that's a a tricky one. But that is the life of the everlasting woman, Henrietta Lux, who died not knowing the good that she would bestow upon the world in terms of medical research.

SPEAKER_02 31:25

And the fact that they're still going to this day, that's amazing. Yeah.

unknown 31:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 31:30

I think it's amazing. That is really Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 31:34

Because of medical science.

SPEAKER_02 31:36

And they've never found anybody else that's got this sort of strain or their cells doing it.

SPEAKER_03 31:40

I don't know. Not in the Lux family. I don't know in general whether there's other people.

SPEAKER_02 31:45

But she was the very first one.

SPEAKER_03 31:47

But i as far as I know, she's the only one. But if she's not the only one, she was certainly the very first one where it was discovered.

SPEAKER_02 31:54

Wow.

SPEAKER_03 31:56

Yeah, definitely.

SPEAKER_02 31:57

Wow.

SPEAKER_03 31:57

Henrietta Lacks.

SPEAKER_02 31:59

So Henrietta Lacks has probably s her cells have saved millions of people's lives, but they've also helped bring lives into this country. Well, because of Into this world, shall I say.

SPEAKER_03 32:09

Yes, very insular, Neil.

SPEAKER_02 32:11

Sorry.

SPEAKER_03 32:12

Because because of medical science and medical research and things, that everyone who's ever lived on planet Earth, eight percent of everyone who's ever lived on planet Earth is currently alive today, which is the biggest portion that there's ever been, because of medical research, of which Henrietta Latt unwittedly contributed a massive amount.

SPEAKER_01 32:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 32:38

We understand the family's grievance. I can understand that the family's thinking, hang on a minute, they've used all this without us knowing. They're all rich and all we're still scraping pennies together to put food on the table. I can understand that.

SPEAKER_03 32:49

Well not just that, but also, as Deborah said, how come that as a family they're struggling to pay for their own health care? Because in America you can be bankrupted through ill health. So you know they're struggling to pay health insurance and and medical bills and whatever. And yet, unbeknown to them, the treatment they're probably receiving, or could have been receiving, is spawned from their own grandmother. Yep, they didn't know anything about it. So I would be, I'd be very aggrieved if it was me.

SPEAKER_02 33:19

This may change the lives of if thousands, if not millions of people.

SPEAKER_03 33:23

Millions.

SPEAKER_02 33:24

Yeah. Millions of people. Look at that. You've got to look at that side of it and think, well, actually, no, it's doing some good all around the world. It'd be nice to get something, you know, it'd be nice to sort of have some sort of kind of recognition for the grandmother, but also to make sure that the family's okay. I I wouldn't want billions or anything like that. I wouldn't want to be a big greedy pig and say, right, I want all your profit to be credited. But you know, it'd be nice to say, well, perhaps we can get a cut or a an allowance from it every year or something from it to make sure we're okay. How's that sound?

SPEAKER_03 33:57

Sorry, I I yeah, I was I was making a sandwich. Um yes, yeah, I I went away uh come back and you were still going on. But thank you, listener, for bearing with us during that episode. That's quite sad, I thought uh it is quite sad.

SPEAKER_02 34:11

It'd be interesting to see what the listeners think about that, what their views are.

SPEAKER_03 34:14

And how would we know that, Neil?

SPEAKER_02 34:16

They could email us, Stephen.

SPEAKER_03 34:18

And where would they do that, Neil?

SPEAKER_02 34:20

That's our email address, Stephen.

SPEAKER_03 34:22

Which is what, Neil?

SPEAKER_02 34:24

HonourableMentions at gmail.com, Stephen.

SPEAKER_03 34:26

No, it's not Neil.

SPEAKER_02 34:27

Isn't it? HonorableMentions Pod at gmail.com.

SPEAKER_03 34:30

That's right. Or they could look us up on your Facebook or Instagram or TikTok.

SPEAKER_02 34:39

Yeah, or they could place a comment on Spotify and places like that. Can they do that? They can. Yeah. They can comment on uh wherever they stream their their music from or their podcasts.

SPEAKER_03 34:48

Or they could write it on a piece of paper, type around a brick, and throw it through your window. There's lots of ways of getting in touch.

SPEAKER_02 34:54

There is, absolutely. Be interested to see what people think about that.

SPEAKER_03 34:58

Henrietta Lacks, the Everlasting Woman. So thank you, listener. I'm sorry, it wasn't a hilarious episode. Not that we've ever done a hilarious episode. They've normally been fairly incompetent. But yeah, that was a fascinating story, I think, about Henrietta Lacks. If you want to read more, then Rebecca Scoot has got a book out there, which I'm informed is very, very good. Although you probably guessed, I haven't read it myself. Thank you for listening. We'll be back again next week for another episode of Honourable Mentions, please. Thank you, Neil. Thank you, Steve. That was good. That was quite good. Hello, Neil. We'll be back again next week, listener, for another episode of Honorable Mentions, please. Until then, be safe, be happy, be well. And if you can't be well, let's hope Henrietta Lax comes to your assistance. Hi.

SPEAKER_00 35:53

Hi, I'm Sir David Beckham. A bit random at the end of a podcast all about Henrietta Lax. I know, but they couldn't get any scientists to treat these triangles and a promise to take Victoria off their hands for an afternoon. Anyway, they want me to read it all. I'm not very good at reading. Let's be honest. Thank you. Anyway, you need to get on how they might have anyone else.