Friday, December 9, 2011

The immortal life of Henrietta Lacks

The immortal life of Henrietta Lacks

So as I read the book I jotted little notes to myself. These little notes were mostly about things I found attention grabbing and noteworthy. One of the first things I took note of was the fact that the doctors at Johns Hopkins thought it was ok to take samples of patients and/or experiment on patients without their knowledge. I believe their reasoning was that they had a right to do so because they were not indebted to the hospital. This was a form of payment to the doctors I believe. The doctors benefitted from the patients just as the patients benefitted from the doctors. This kind of reasoning is erroneous in my mind. Now I do not want to get political or anything but I think this kind of stuff (medical treatment) should be free and if any doctor is going to experiment of me or take samples of me, I would definitely like to know. I know this kind of thinking doesn’t exist anymore (or at least I think it doesn’t anymore) but this just shows how much things have changed, at least in this perspective.

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