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Rebecca Skloot's The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks chooses to highlight a more whole, realistic picture of the history of medical research. This film reframes narrative around history of medical research by highlighting the DNA taken without consent and exploitatively used, ultimately leading to the discovery of HeLa cells. This is not a story of triumph and success, but one of exploitation and violation of ethical guidelines in science.

Taking these cells without consent was a blatant ethical violation on the part of the researchers. In the film, the counter narrative was clearly the ethical side of this research, specifically how these scientists took all the credit. A story with little visibility is that of black people in scientific research. This is told both through the film and in countless other examples in history (medical experiments on slaves and pain tolerance black people can endure). With no visibility, no reparations, and no credit for undergoing painful and traumatic procedures, the full story of black people in medical research is seldom told.

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The film adaptation of "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks reframes mainstream narratives of medical research by demonstrating the exploiting nature of medicine as Lacks' cells were being taken without consent. This action exposes the systematic racism and unethical practices in the medical field which people of color are subjected to. The film shows the counternarrative of the bodies of African Americans being utilized towards the advancement of medicine unjustly and the ramifications presented. Although HeLa cells have helped enormously the scientific world, Henrietta's family was now taken into account and were never informed or compensated. This goes to show how many like Henrietta have stories that remain less visible to the public without mention of the psychological and economic consequences they exhibit. Lacks' family besides finances dealt with issues of healthcare which is utterly shocking as Henrietta is such a key factor in the medical society now. Deborah and Zakariyya as well as Elsie all endured traumatic experiences yet were not supported through them. Addressing these disparities will not only help society but also help those being taken advantage of.

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In The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, the film reframes medical research by showing how Henrietta’s cells were taken without her consent which highlights the exploitation of marginalised individuals. It focuses on the pain and struggles of Henrietta’s family, who were kept in the dark while others profited from her cells.

Some key scenes that stood out to me include her daughter Deborah learning about her mother’s impact with the weight of that knowledge. Her son Zakariyya expressed deep anger over the injustice and lack of recognition. His frustration reflected the emotional toll on the family, who were left struggling financially despite Henrietta's immense contribution to science.

The counter narrative that the film introduces is that it touches on these personal intimate stories that seemed incomplete and does not deeply talk about the ongoing trauma faced by Henrietta's descendants, leaving parts of the narrative incomplete.

The medical research narratives do not focus on the ethics but exploit marginalised individuals like Henrietta for their own benefit

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The film does not use the typical voice to tell the history of medical research. Mainstream narratives regarding medical research are usually forthright and informative. In other words, they are more ethos than pathos. Often this causes a trail away from the true matter of the story, which is the humane part. The voice in Rebecca Skloot's book is human. The narrator does not use an informative voice to tell the story of the medical abuse against black people, but rather an empathic voice that allows the audience to evoke their emotions and opinions. This approach allows the introduction of counter-narratives such as Deborah Lacks who then can give the audience her own feelings and emotions about the situation. The story I believe remained less visible is the story of Day. I wish he had his voice that narrated why he had the feelings he did. I also think Elise needs her own book.

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The film contrasts the narratives of Rebbecca, Henrietta’s children, Dr Gey and the rest of the modern scientific world who have benefited from her cells. The latter two expressed a more objective perspective where they try to glorify her for “saving lives” and significantly contributing to polio vaccine and AIDs cocktails yet blatantly disregard the unethical manner in which they removed her identity as a donor (after Lack’s death) to make the Hela cells patent free. The conflict between Henrietta’s children mirror their traumatic childhoods as one of the sisters, Elsie was experimented on while committed to an institution and Dale and Zakariyah were abused as children. The lack of a mother figure as well as not being compensated financially for their mother’s cells have significantly held them back in life to the point where Dale suffers from a myriad of mental illnesses and Zakariyah had been arrested early on. As for Rebecca, she serves primarily to put the story of the Lacks family in the light but is unclear whether she served a role in ensuring that the children are owed their fair due.

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In the scientific field, it is easy to lose the sense of humanity and empathy that should guide each discovery. However, it is essential to remind scientists that their work goes beyond molecular analysis and chemical impact, they are working with and for living beings.

The film presents the impact of HeLa cells, which represented revolutionary advancements for medicine, and zooms into the personal narrative of Henrrieta’s family, showing how the injustices they faced regarding the use of their mother’s cells damaged their lives in many ways. A counter narrative that is introduced is Henrietta’s life itself, because for decades she was an invisible contributor to medicine, the film presents the woman that revolutionized science for more than just her cells, amending the dehumanization that she and her family experienced.

Stories that remain incomplete are the physical abuse to Zakariya, as well as the crime he was convicted for, the sexual assault of Deborah, and the life of Elsie.

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Based on Rebecca Skloots book, I think that the film reframes mainstream narratives about the history of medical research because not all findings came from "patients" or humans who consented to being treated/researched for medical breakthroughs. After watching the film, I found that African American people, specifically Henrietta Lack's were unethically used to further medical findings which caused painful, wrong and unforgettable harrowing experiences that are still talked about today. Her cells were used to help researchers investigate these unique kinds of cells, but without her consent and for many years following. While this was not the topic of discussion, this reminds me of the Tuskegee Phyllis Study in the sense that information of patients was used for long periods of time in labs without the knowledge of the owner of said cells. A counter narrative was the idea that Henriettas life and the picture everyone seemed to paint about her family, and he as a person. The trauma she went through was ignored, or at least not publicized and instead stories about how kind and loving she was were told.

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The film depicted how medical research was not consented to, and it wasn't by choice either. How they took advantage of black people. It also talked about how black people would be snatched and used as for medical research purposes. "Patient consent is not required for research on human tissue obtained during medical treatment if the donor's identity is removed." - this shows how the doctors and even the medical research team did not have respect for the individuals as patients, even after they died, or helped humanity in several ways. One counterargument introduced was how Henrietta lived her life, as a young woman filled with life, how everyone was willing to help once word was out that she was sick, how her children who are not included in the story because publishers felt it wasn't necessary. This was the part of the story that nobody really talked about, and everyone else talked about her cells and how it changed the world.

The stories that remain incomplete was (were) about her children's lives, people only had a single story like:

The mentally damaged daughter- Elsie

The indigent ex-con brother- Zakariya

The manic-depressive daughter- Deborah.

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The film narrates how medical research in the past often reduced people of color to mere lab experiments through the life of Henrietta Lacks’s family. Henrietta Lacks was a woman whose cells were nonconsensually taken from her after she died from cervical cancer. Through the film, the audience sees the demoralization of black women through the aftermath of Henrietta Lacks’s family trauma. A counter narrative was about Henrietta's life as a young woman and how lively and loving she was. Some stories that seemed incomplete were the story of Elise and her life, the childhood of Deborah, and Henrietta’s life when she was young as well.