Descendants Of Henrietta Lacks Reach Settlement

It’s been more than seven decades since doctors at Johns Hopkins Hospital took the cervical cells of a Black woman before she died of cancer without her knowledge or consent.

Now, the descendants of Henrietta Lacks have reached a settlement with a biotechnology company that made millions in profits off the racist medical system that turned Black people into human experiments in the name of medical progress (which white people mainly benefited from).

Source: Ben Birchall – PA Images / Getty

The Associated Press reports that tissue taken from Lacks’ tumor before she died of cervical cancer became the first human cells to continuously grow and reproduce in lab dishes.  Known as “HeLa cells” they went on to become a “cornerstone of modern medicine,” enabling countless scientific and medical innovations, including the development of the polio vaccine, genetic mapping and even COVID-19 vaccines.

Despite that incalculable impact, the Lacks family had never been compensated.

Lacks’ cells were harvested in 1951 when it was not illegal to do so without a patient’s permission. But lawyers for her family argued that Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc., of Waltham, Massachusetts, continued to commercialize the results long after the origins of the HeLa cell line became well known.

The company unjustly enriched itself off Lacks’ cells, the family argued in their lawsuit, filed in 2021, reports AP. 

Source: The Washington Post / Getty

For the record; just because it was legal in 1951 to harvest a Black person’s cells unbeknownst to them doesn’t make it right, especially considering all the other things it was legal to do to Black people 13 years before the Civil Rights Act was signed.

But to play dumb and blind regarding the injustice and continue to keep making money off of the practice 70 years after it happened adds insult to injury. It’s essentially knowing history and still intentionally continuing to repeat it.

According to famed civil rights attorney Ben Crump,  who represents the family, the terms of the settlement are confidential, and both Thermo Fisher and the family declined to comment on it outside of saying they were “pleased to resolve the matter,” according to AP.

Hopefully, Henrietta Lack’s family got all the compensation they’re owed and we continue to see big businesses pay restitution for the oppression they profit from.