They kept it a secret because they were scared the doctor would take her womb and she wouldn't be able to have children.

Why did she feel so different in the hospital? She said she feels like she's from another country. Why is that?

She felt out of place because she knew about harvesting tobacco and killing a pig, but she didn't know about the words cervix or biopsy.

What are all the STD's?

Epileptic: A person affected by epilepsy.

Asymptomatic: Showing no evidence of disease.

Neurosyphilis: A syphilitic infection affecting the central nervous system

Cervix: Any necklike part, especially the constricted lower end of the uterus.

Biopsy: The removal for diagnostic study of a piece of tissue from a living body.

Vocab on chapter 2:

Idyllic: Suitable for or suggestive of an idyll; charmingly simple or rustic

Asbestos: A fibrous mineral, either amphibole or chrysotile, formerly used for making incombustible or fireproof articles.

He quit school in fourth grade because his family needed him to work in the fields.

What kind of school did Henrietta go to?

She went to a "colored" school where she got taunted and rocks were thrown at her. The school was a three roomed wooden farmhouse under tall trees and boys and girls were made to play on separate sides of the school.

Why was it okay for kids to drop out of school at such a young age back in that time?

The treatment was discovered in the late 1800's and was headlined nationwide as "a substitute for gas, electricity, and a positive cure for every disease." The downside to this is that it destroys every cell it comes to and the patients began dying. It causes mutations that can turn into cancer and it can burn someone's skin off their body. But it kills the cancer cells.

Why did Gey and Margaret, his wife, grow malignant cells?

They thought the cells could cure cancer but most of the cells died quickly and barely any survived at all.

Why did they only experiment on "colored" people and not white people?

He was studying her hands because he wanted see the dexterity (skill in performing tasks) and strength of them.

When did they finally figure out that Henrietta's cells were immortal?

The next morning when Mary had figured out that the cells were growing. She didn't think much of it at first, she just moved them into a different area but they just kept growing. Then and only then did they discover that Henrietta's cells were not normal cells.

Why did Gey hire Mary for her hands and not her actual work ethic?

Vocab on chapter 3:

Epidermoid: A cystic tumor made up of abnormal epidermal cells.

Carcinoma: A malignant and invasive epithelial tumor that spreads by metastasis and often recurs after excision; cancer.

Hysterectomies: Excision of the uterus.

Radium: A highly radioactive metallic element whose decay yields radon gas and alpha rays

Vocab on chapter 4:

Physiology: The branch of biology dealing with the functions and activities of living organisms

Why didn't Henrietta tell the doctors that the treatment was literally burning her?

She was upset because in the book, it says she loves kids. Even though she already had five kids, she wanted more.

Why did they not tell Henrietta that she could not have kids before the treatment but they told everyone else?

Henrietta wanted to keep having kids. She would not have done the treatment if she knew she could never have kids again.

Why was Deborah saying that it was hard to trust people and yet she was telling someone that she has never met all these things about her mother?

Her brothers stopped her from talking to Rebecca because they said that Deborah should just write her own book and not give out all the information.

Why did David Lacks not want to talk to Rebecca?

He thought all every white person wanted was to take Henrietta´s cells for more research when in reality she just wanted to write a book.

Vocab on chapter 5:

Gonorrhea: A contagious, purulent inflammation of the urethra or the vagina, caused by the gonococcus.

Radiation:The process in which energy is emitted as particles or waves.

X-Ray therapy:Treatment of a disease using controlled quantities of x-rays.

Would growing actual organs really help with curing cancer or would it just make things worse because even if someone has a new organ, they still have to take rejection medicine to keep the body agreeing with the new organ.

That's exactly why, they thought they found a cure so they told everybody, but it ended up not working so it disappointed a lot of people.

Why did Gey ship live cells out to other scientists via plane?

Because he couldn't ship them out in the mail, which is done today, and he sent them out so other scientists could use them for cancer research.

Henrietta told them that she felt something moving around in her but they found nothing wrong so they sent her home.

Why did she keep going through with the treatment if it kept giving her pain?

The doctors thought the treatment was helping her but it was just killing her more and more on the inside and the outside.

It didn't say why, but he told Rebecca where to go and who to meet with.

At first why did nobody want to talk to Rebecca in chapter nine?

Because they needed approval from the family to talk about her

Why did they keep lying to Henrietta about countless things?

If Rebecca never went to research Henrietta would she be as known as she is today?

What does polio mean?

Why did no one visit Elsie even though Henrietta told them to keep her safe?

Why did Day say no to the autopsy at first?

It bothered her because Henrietta would never let her nail polish chip like that. The book said, "Henrietta would rather have died than let her polish chip like that." 92 Skloot.

Family gathered in Lacks Town as the undertaker drove through and to the cemetery, trying to find an open place to put Henrietta's body. Elsie didn't know her mother had died, and the Lackses only remember one thing about the service; the sky turned black and the rain poured. The storm that followed was strong and loud and angry, and the family knows she was trying to tell them something with that storm.

In Chapter 13: The HeLa Factory of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot, a HeLa factory was in the plans. They wanted to produce trillions of her cells each week, and it would be to help stop polio. People claim to have the vaccine to polio, and many things have to be tested. The vaccination process is discussed, and the struggle to find the cells for neutralization tests that weren't from monkeys (which were super expensive). The timing for Gey is perfect, and HeLa is a gold mine- the cells grow unlike any other human cells. In fact, her cells are even more susceptible to the virus than any other cultured cells had been before. Gey has to experiment on ways to mass-ship these cells, and Tuskegee becomes the center and provides 100,000s of dollars in funding, jobs, and training opportunities for young black scientists (ironic???). This all occurred during the infamous Tuskegee syphilis studies. They find new ways to ship and store and study the cells, such as freezing them and examining them during various freezing points. We learn why HeLa grew and why it was important, and their slow discovery on chromosomes (which HeLa helped sort out). Margaret Gey and many of Gey’s colleagues pushed for George Gey to publish research papers to get credit, but he is too busy and doesn't want to. Margaret publishes and writes his work for him. George grows upset at the fact that he is now completely out of control of HeLa, and a fellow colleague tells him that since he released the strain so widely, he can’t  take back the progress. Soon, people started to wonder about the person behind the cells.

In Chapter 14: Helen Lane of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot, when Henrietta's name is first released, it's released as “Henrietta Lakes”. No one knows who leaked that, but Roland H. Berg, an NFIP press officer, writes Gey with an interest to write a more detailed article about HeLa for a popular magazine. Gey and TeLinde agree, but want to withhold her name. Gey wants to give Henrietta a fictitious name (pen name). Soon after, she is known as numerous identities, which protects her family from knowing that her cells are still alive.

In Chapter 15: “Too Young To Remember” of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot, we learn that Ethel replaced Henrietta, and instead of caring for the children, she abused and underfed them. Joe was randomly abused and beaten and became cruel and angry, while Deborah was not only being beat, but molested and taken advantage of.

Synthesis is putting different things together.

What us analyst?

An analyst means to pull things apart.

Why didn't they help out the black patients too? Why only white?

Even if Gey did let Henrietta's name out couldn't he lost his job? So why would he even consider it?

What made Ethel so strict with the children?

Why didn't they mark who was buried where?

What is tularemia?

They found that after the rats had been injected with HeLa they grew tumors and wanted to know if the HeLa would do the same thing in humans.

Why was it dangerous to inject humans with HeLa? This was dangerous because they didn't know if the cancer would spread in the patients or not.

What is Tree Man?

Was she really planning on killing Cheetah?

By the time he made it into the house, it was too late, he was already dying and by the time the ambulance came, he was already dead.

Why did Deborah marry Cheetah?

He wasn't that bad of a man at first, but then he started drinking and became abusive.

Was HeLa the reason normal cells were becoming cancerous?

Because they were so used to white people asking and picking information from them for so long.

Why did Hopkin's abduct black people?

Because no one volunteered to be researched on so they forced people to do it.

Why was it only recommended to the doctors to ask for consent? Shouldn't it be required?

Even if the patients did give consent isn't it their right to know what they're being tested on?

In Chapter 20: The HeLa Bomb of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot, Stanley Gartler stepped up to the podium at the Second Decennial Review Conference on Cell Tissue and Organ Culture, and essentially shot down all of the research that had been used with the eighteen most common cell cultures; they all contained a rare genetic marker called G6PD-A, almost exclusively found in black people and more importantly, Henrietta Lacks. HeLa had contaminated all of these cell strands, because they were so “contagious”. Her cells could float through air on dust particles, transfer on coats or pipettes, and even though ventilation systems. They had even penetrated the ATCC aka Fort Knox. It was so devastating to these researchers who had put in decades and millions of dollars only to have continued regrowing HeLa, that many of them were in denial and refused to believe in these accusations and “attacks”. More precautions end up taking place in order to prevent cell cross-contamination.

Why did they wait so long to pass the law stating that the scientists need consent to research on someone?

Once again why did it take so long to pass the HIPPA law?

Shouldn't the dead still have privacy too? Henrietta's family should have consent on all this stuff.

How did Henrietta's cells become immortal?

Did the skin color of people really matter? Like why would their skin color affect the way their cells work? Every human is the same on the inside, we all have bones, we all have a skeleton, all have muscles, so why did it matter the way their cells functioned? That's a little ridiculous don't you think?

After so many years why was Deborah still not ready to see Henrietta's cells?

and after his surgery, Moore led an average life in Seattle. Every few months, he flew back to UCLA for checkups, where Golde took bone marrow, blood, and semen, he started to question why he was flying to LA if a doctor in Seattle could do this. Golde starts to bribe him in order to try to convince Moore to keep working with him. Moore gets even more suspicious after Golde sends him a consent form asking to grant rights to UCLA for his cell line or any other product that could be obtained from his blood marrow. John signs do, at first, scared to rock the boat, but when he is faced with that form again, he circles do not. Golde says that Moore must have circled it wrong and wants him to fix it, but he doesn't. Golde sends another form and tells him to circle I do. He gets persistent, and Moore discovers that he is the cell line Mo, and Golde has been lying and misusing him, even looking to patent his cell line. Moore’s cells produced rare proteins that at every useful and helpful, but if Moore had known this prior to the patent, he could have worked out a deal to sell them himself. People want to sell their cells and serums, and Ted Slavin was lucky to have an honest Doctor. However, Moores was not and he cannot sell the cell line because it would be a violation to the patent. People finally begin to realize what's wrong, and the Lacks family is oblivious to all that is happening.

In Chapter 27: The Secret of Immortality of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot, research on the HeLa cell finally uncover how her cancer started, and why the cells never died. A German virologist named Harald zur Hausen believes that HPV-18 and HPV-16 caused cervical cancer. Today, there are over 100 strains, and 13 of them cause oral, cervical, anal, and penile cancer. HPV inserts its DNA into the host cell’s DNA, but then the HPV DNA is blocked, the cervical cancer cells stopped being cancerous. This lead to an HPV vaccine, and a Nobel Prize for zur Hausen. However, why this produced such monstrously virulent cells inside and outside of her body, scientists do not know. Cervical cancer cells are some of the hardest to culture, yet she thrives and destroys other cell lines. Henrietta’s family members have their own theories about why her cells grew so powerfully, and Howard Jones has never forgotten her tumor. HIV is also on its way to being stopped thanks to HeLa’s cells. HeLa is claimed to no longer be human due to the fact that its evolved and differentiated from Henrietta. The University of Chicago proposes that HeLa is deemed as their own species. They are still classified as human, and we learn of the Hayflick Limit; the number of times a normal human cell can divide before they stop growing and begins to die, but cancer cells can grow indefinitely. A telomere is a string of DNA at the end of each chromosome, that shortens just a little each time the cell divides, almost like time ticking off a clock. The telomere shortens with each division until nearly nothing is left and the cell begins to die. Human cancer cells contain an enzyme called telomerase that rebuilds the telomeres, allowing them to regenerate indefinitely.

In Chapter 28: After London of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot, Henrietta’s story catches the attention of a BBC producer named Adam Curtis, and he begins making a documentary about Henrietta, which is the one that Rebecca watched in Courtney Speed’s beauty parlor. Deborah is excited and believes that everything will change, and refers to time periods in her life as before and after London. The BBC is persistent conducting many interviews with the family, and Roland Pattillo organizes the first annual HeLa Cancer Control Symposium, and makes October 11th Henrietta Lacks Day. He invites the Lacks family to join along, and they're very thrilled. However, there are some roadblocks. Sonny has extremely high blood pressure, and he nearly missed the whole event. Meanwhile, Zakariyya gets drunk on the minibars from his room as well as his father’s and Deborah’s. He lashes out in anger, and Deborah tries her hardest to ignore everything else as she talks on stage to the audience. We see a bit of her paranoia, because she's worried that there might be a sniper in the audience. After a researcher talks about cloning, she asks if it's possible to take DNA from the HeLa cells and bring her mother back, but the answer is no. Courtney Speed and another woman establish the Henrietta Lacks museum which seems great but upsets Deborah because she wants money for the family to go to the doctors and not for a museum. However, she helps on occasion. Sir Lord Keenan Kester Cofield is a con artist who likes to sue anyone and everyone, yet is very sneaky in helping the Lackses. He pretends to be a lawyer for them, and also a doctor. After he wants Henrietta’s medical records, Deborah discovers that he was a fraud from Doctor Kidwell. Cofield overruns Deborah's mail with many ridiculous legal documents, as well as Speed’s. They're spooked and anxious, and Henrietta’s recognition starts to go down the drain. Deborah also learns that Elsie was committed to a mental institution for the Negro Insane called Crownsville in Maryland, and she nearly had a stroke. Pattillo left a message on her answering machine saying he'd been talking to a reporter who wants to help and write a book about Henrietta and that Deborah should contact her. The reporter is Rebecca.