In 1951, at John Hopkins Hospital, Dr. George Gey, without permission, took Henrietta Lacks’ cancer cells because he wanted to do research. His intentions were respectable, and he ended up growing the cells and distributing them to the scientific community. Gey had discovered a scientific breakthrough, HeLa cells, but did so without the knowledge of Henrietta Lacks or the Lacks family. Even though many people do not agree with Gey’s decision, his actions helped develop many vaccines and cures, so some people agree with the decision to take the cells, whether permission had been granted by Lacks or not. Gey did not know that what he was doing was wrong so he cannot be put to blame. The fact that there was not a law stating that someone needs consent before taking the cells of another person for research is more to blame than Gey was. However, Gey should not have distributed the HeLa cells without the knowledge and consent of Lacks and her family. …show more content…
Even though there is no law that states that the hospital needs consent to take cells for research, Gey should have asked Lacks for permission out of respect. If Lacks was white then maybe the treatment would have been a little different and permission would have been requested. Nobody will ever know the outcome if Lacks was white. I think that it is great that because of the research was made, cures and vaccines of multiple illnesses were developed, but the Lacks family was not taken into consideration at all. It was not until August of 2013 that the Lacks and her family would finally be recognized by the National Institutes of Health (Burki 1). If the family knew that Gey took Lacks’ cells at the time, the situation might have come off little less