Chapter 1

1 The word immortal in the context of this story means like a part of somebody will never
die and it will always continue to grow and never stop growing and developing. Henrietta was
indeed considered immortal due to her cancer cells that keep multiplying in which meant that
a part of her was always going to be alive making her immortal.
2 Cancer is considered a dangerous disease because it can effect almost every and any part of
the body and may spread easily like wild fire. There is also no cure for cancer but there are
treatments that help manage the disease and ease the symptoms.
3 Henrietta and other black people avoided going to the doctor or going to the hospital because
it was during the Jim Crow era and most hospitals only treated white patients and they
wouldnt treat black patients so they'll send them home.
4 When Henrietta went to the doctor they discovered a lump that was delicate that it would
bleed with the softest touch.
Chapter 2-3
5 Henrietta had her first baby when she was at the age of fourteen. She got married her cousin
when she was twenty and had child. To me it was surprising but at that time it was very
common for that a person to marry young and to their cousin and have children.
6 The doctors researching on innocent patients without their consent was wrong because they
were using their bodies without there knowledge and permission. Although doctors may have
good intentions but I strongly believe that a patient has a right to have consent of what they are
doing with there bodies, even if it is part of them inside or not attached to them.
7 The reason the doctors took samples of Henriettas tumor and healthy cervix tissue was so
the doctor can compare he samples and try to see if he was able to grow the cells outside of her
body. He wanted to compare two different types of cervix cancer because he wanted to prove
that both types were dangerous. Doctor Telindue also wished to prove hat carcinoma in situ
was as lethal as the invasive carcinoma.
8 Radium is a radioactive metal that was used to treat cervical carcinomas. It is dangerous
because it may cause mutations in the body which may develop into cancer and high doses of it
may burn a persons skin off.
Chapter 4-5
9 Dr. Gey wanted to grow cells so that he could develop a way for them to survive outside the
body. It is difficult to get cells to grow and develop outside the body because no individual
could develop a proper formula to feed the cells in order for them to mutate.
10 This chapter was named The Birth of HeLa because it talks about how Henriettas
cancer cells grew faster than any other cell in the world. They also did not die in the first
couple of days like the other cells the doctors tried to develop.
Chapter 6
11 The Tuskegee syphilis study was a study done in the thirties by the U.S. Public
Health Service at the Tuskegee Institution. They recruited a good amount of African American
men to participate in this study and infected them with the disease and watched them suffer and
die knowing that they could use penicillin to cure them. These men did not ask questions about
the research due to the benefits they got from doing the study.
12 The Mississippi Appendectomies was the hysterectomies of African American
women to stop them from reproducing, and gave doctors a chance the practice the procedure.
13 These two studies made black people mistrust doctors because doctors believed that
black lives did not matter so they took advantage of the fact that they did not have know of
what the doctors were doing to them. The mistrust also came from the fact that the doctors
 showed that they did not care about how they are doing they basically used them as science
experiments.

14 Roland Pattillo was a professor of gynecology at Morehouse College and had been
George Geys only African American student. Pattillo had organized a symposium in
Henriettas honor and was protective of Henriettas family because people wanted to do a story
on Henrietta for fame since they didn't know nor understand any of her background and he
didn't want them to be used more than they already have.
Chapter 7-8
15 Dr.Gey sent Henriettas cells to any scientist who wanted to use them for caner
research. The cells ended up traveling all over the world because they were being tested on
things that couldn't be tested on a human.
16 I believe the Henrietta would have gotten better treatment for her cancer if she was
white but then they wouldn't have discovered the HeLa cells if they gave her better treatment.
Yes they would be more sympathetic towards her condition but they wouldn't have found a
better treatment for her condition.
17 Henriettas cancer got worst because she started to complain of not being able to
urinate so the doctors placed a catheter in and they believed that she would be okay. Although
she would go back to the doctor and complain about the pain in her stomach but the doctors
didn't do anything. Until the doctor felt a hard mass in Henriettas stomach and demanded an
X-ray to be done and discovered many of new tumors in her stomach. She was sent to the
hospital and everyday the pain would grow and nothing made it better. The cancer continued to
get progress and new tumor would appear all around her body daily.
Chapter 9-10
18 When Rebecca drove through Turners Point the people would just wave as she passed
by.
19 I have felt that experience, it was when I first attended Day care. I was the only
hispanic child surrounded by black kids. They all looked at me as if I was deformed child
because I didn't look like the rest of them.
20 To Cottie, voodoo is means man made or made by the sprits, in Henriettas case she
believes that either the doctors made the cells or the sprits had something to do with her cells
living forever and not dying.
Chapter 11-12
21 Emmett Lacks and the other men went to donate blood to Henrietta because she had
been good to them and they wanted to help her stay alive.
22 Henrietta last wish was for nothing bad to happen to her kids. She wanted her
husband to take good care of them.
23 I think that some people do not want to have autopsies because when someone dies
most people want their body or there loved one body to be left in peace. Although some people
want to do an autopsy so that they can find out how exactly heir loved ones died.
24 People who donate their organs to science I consider them to be very generous
because they are giving their all to help save lives. Personally, I wouldn't want to unless I'm
dead but I would find it useless for me to donate an organ for science. If a loved one was in
need of an organ or blood I will donate but if not then I wouldnt.
 25 I dont think that it is ironic that Henrietta had an unmarked grave even though her
cells were an important part of science at that time it makes sense for her to have an unmarked
grave because of her race that made her unimportant no matter the marks she made on
scientific history.
Chapter 13
26 Before the use of the HeLa cells scientist used a serum made from childrens blood
and monkeys cells to try and find a cure for polio. If the serum worked the cells was be
immune from the virus. The problem with the practice that was that it needed many children to
volunteer and monkeys were very expensive. When the HeLa cells were founded they were
sustainable to the polio virus and this found a cheaper way to try and find the cure to polio by
using the HeLa cells.
27 It is ironic that the first HeLa cell factory was at Tuskegee because she was a black
women and at around that time in Tuskegee they were infecting black men with syphilis.
28 Polio was an important research made with the HeLa cells because it was affecting a
majority part of the country at the time including the president had polio as a child that had
made him paralyzed. Measles was causing the death for many people in the United States and
the use of HeLa cells helped scientist understand the disease and helped develop ways they
could make treatments for it. The HeLa cells also help doctors be able to further research on
TB, which affects the lungs. This was a dangerous disease because the only way treatment they
had was replacing it with an iron lung. Encephalitis was the swelling of the brain usually
caused by measles so while they used the HeLa cells to study measles, they also helped
understand encephalitis. The use of HeLa cells in cloning helped the advancements in
developing a single cell in a culture, including isolating stem cells also in cloning whole
animals. The use of the HeLa cells has also helped the advancement of vitro fertilization
because scientists learned how to visualize all of our genetic material and how to look at
chromosomes better. Chemotherapy was a very important study with these here HeLa cells
because before the only treatment there was for cancer was the radium. AIDS was a virus that
scientist did not know a lot about so the HeLa cells helped them better understand the virus.
Space exploration was an interest in the United States around this time because of the race to
space with other countries so they used her cells to see how they would react with zero
gravity.
Chapter 14-15
29 Dr. Gey did not want Henriettas real name to be used in any of the articles because
he did not want her family to find out what they had done with her cells. He made the writers
keep the wrong name so that no one would ever know her real name and keep her family from
realizing whose cells there were actually talking about.
30 If the reporters had used Henriettas real name I believe that they would have tried to
sue them and gave them a bad reputation for letting her suffer so much all for studies and they
would always remember her and what she did.
31 Tuberculosis is a disease in the lungs that caused people to cough up blood and in the
1950s it was treated by pills and if that didnt work then people would be sent to get iron lungs
for them to be able to breath. This was ironic that they got tuberculosis after her funeral
because her cells were also being used to find a treatment for tuberculosis.
Chapter 16-17
32 This is ironic that the black and white Lacks were buried in the same place because
the white Lacks never acknowledge that there were black Lacks. They didn't act like they were
related although they say that they are but there is no valid evidence that they are related they
were just slaves according to them.
 33 I strongly believe that this is very wrong because the patients and prisoners didn't
know what they were being injected with and they have every right to know what is being done
to them. I understand if they were to be told what was going on they wouldn't have done it but
it is not right for Dr. Southam to test the cancerous HeLa cells on cancer patients and prisoners
in jail without them knowing they were cancer cells.
34 Doctors and researchers shouldn't be able to conduct risky research on people without
their consent because people have the right to know and decide whether they want to do this
research. In doing that research without their consent will put a bad name on doctors and
research because of what they are doing and people wouldn't trust doctors as much.
35 Informed consent is when the doctor informs the patients the exact procedure they are
going to do on them and the many different risks and side effects that come with the
procedure.
Chapter 18-20
36. I dont think that scientist are going too far they are just trying to discover more about humans
and cells and how they work and they are overall being curios about life. They are also called
scientist for a reason because we mainly look at them when we don't know why something does what
it does or why it does it.
37. Now a days society is pretty much neutral about it since it is more common now than in the
1960s and 1970s. In those times it was strictly forbidden for them to have a child during teenage
years and they would do anything to hide it or not get people to notice. This was also mainly based in
religion since it was more of a big deal back then than it is now. although we have developed more
resources for them now than there was before.
38. Henriettas cells were strong that they contaminated all of the scientist different cell experiments.
This is why there were many thoughts that the normal cells turned cancerous because they were just
contaminated by the HeLa cells.
Chapter 21-22
39. John Hopkins was a man who made his millions being a banker, a grocer, and selling his own
brand of whiskey. When he died, he donated 7 million dollars to charity for them to start a medical
school. The whole point of the school was to help sick people no matter their sex, age or color. He
also only wanted people to be charged if they could afford it. He also wanted to for colored children
to be given an education.
40. Chapter 21 is named Night Doctors because this chapter discuses how doctors who take black
people off the street at night and perform different experiments on them. Doctors from John Hopkins
at night would take the black people and would perform different experiments on them.
41. Dr.Gey wanted surgeons to take samples of his prostate cancer to do experiments on it to see if
his cells were like Henriettas cells. Although he knew he was going to die, he wanted to help
advance science with new research. I do believe that the doctors should have honor his request
because they knew how much it meant to him and he didnt care if he had to sacrifice his life he just
wanted to help them advance in science. His situation compared to Henrietta is that he knew that his
cells were going to be taken and she didnt.
Chapter 23-26
42. I believe that it was wrong for the doctor to remove the tissues without the consent of Henrietta
and not telling her exactly why they were removing the tissues. Dr. Gey was so focused on growing
the cells and keeping them alive that it didn't occur to him who he was taking them from.
43. I feel like I should be able to control over my body once I go see the doctor even after that being
done to me because I mean it is my body. Yes, I would like to get paid because it is my body.
44. A persons personal right is more important than the benefit of science because I think that if
people knew what their tissue was being used for they would not be go against to the idea of
benefiting for science. Scientist taking peoples tissues is wrong because its like stealing their
identity.
45. It was a good thing for Rebecca Skloot to write this book for the Lacks family because I
understand that Rebecca had all good intentions with this book
46. yes I do believe that they should receive money because they are in dept with their medical bills
but to me that is still part of it and since part of Henriettas last wish was for her children to be safe
and good taken care of then it would be only fair for them to get the whole money from all the sales.
Chapter 27-33
47. Scientist said that the HeLa cells were no longer human because as cells are in a culture for a
while they begin to alter little by little. The scientist believed that since the cells have existed for
many years they altered into a completely different species from the original HeLa cells.
48. Deborah did not rust Rebecca because she had been taken advantage of so many times so she did
not know who to trust anymore. She always assumed that Rebecca was working with John Hopkins
althoug she was not she was independent. Deborah was not justified not to rust her because Rebecca
never betrayed her nor wanted to pressure her to trust her and help her finish the book.
Chapter 34-38
49. The reason she did not want anyone to have her medical records because they were one of the
few things that she and her family had of Henrietta since she passed away. Deborah thought since the
whole world had her cells they at east deserved to keep her medical records and her bible to
themselves than to share it with the world.
50. Rebecca was feeling responsible for all of the stress Deborah had because she was the one taking
her to these places back in time that her mother and sister went through and telling Deborah sad
things about their life and it made Deborah very sick. Rebecca felt like since she was trying to get all
of this information about the family it was too much for Deborah to handle. It took an emotional
wreck on Deborah because she learned about how terrible her sisters life was in the facility she lived
and that caused a physical wreck on her body because of all of the stress she was under throughout
this process.